


Credit in the Straight World

by ninhursag



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fairies, M/M, Prostitution, Sexual Experimentation, Sibling Incest, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-23
Updated: 2010-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:38:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has always had his brother, when he wanted him and when he didn't. But that was before he was the lucky recipient of a gift from faerie that Dean can't remember and John can't forget. It leaves Sam to find his own way to navigate between the 'real' world and the Winchester world and deal with guilt he can't shake, no matter how hard he tries. And trying? Is going to involve plenty of sex, rebellion (and maybe some of Dean's rock and roll. But not much).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Credit in the Straight World

**Author's Note:**

> Um. OMG [](http://community.livejournal.com/spn_j2_bigbang/profile)[**spn_j2_bigbang**](http://community.livejournal.com/spn_j2_bigbang/)!  
> So, this is done! Unbelievable. And thanks everyone who actually reads it b29;
> 
> Thank you [](http://giandujakiss.livejournal.com/profile)[**giandujakiss**](http://giandujakiss.livejournal.com/) and [](http://sloane-m.livejournal.com/profile)[**sloane_m**](http://sloane-m.livejournal.com/) for being my betas, kicking my ass  
> when I needed kicking, cheerleading whether I deserved it or not, and generally  
> being awesome and helpful. Without you guys this would be about two thirds the  
> story it is in length and seriously lacking in cool. Thanks to [](http://kkscatnip.livejournal.com/profile)[**kkscatnip**](http://kkscatnip.livejournal.com/) my amazing best buddy, all around  
> lets me bounce my cracktastic ideas off her in the middle of the road while  
> going out for burritos girl. And mucho ridiculous thanks to [](http://back-in-black.livejournal.com/profile)[**back_in_black**](http://back-in-black.livejournal.com/) who held my hand through the  
> tattoo scene, told me all the stuff I'd need to know to make it not lame or  
> fake, provided a shit ton of links and basically went above and beyond the call  
> (hope you like what I did with it, man b29;). And for audiencing at various  
> stages, offering advice and general hand holding, [](http://cormallen.livejournal.com/profile)[**cormallen**](http://cormallen.livejournal.com/) and **nova_berry**. Thanks for telling me  
> you did not hate this story when I was paranoid. Haha.
> 
> And, of course, thanks [](http://dreamlittleyo.livejournal.com/profile)[**dreamlittleyo**](http://dreamlittleyo.livejournal.com/) for the really beautiful art.  
> You made me love them a little more with your pictures.
> 
> Also, I'd like to thank the wonderful people who put in the time and energy to  
> run big bang. And the Oscars and... wait. Okay, I'll shut up now.  
> 

The first thing in the world that Sam remembered was Dean. It was a hazy memory, everything dark and slippery around the edges. He was very small and trying to make himself even smaller, huddled under layers and layers of sheets and blankets, tangled and interspersed until he could hardly breathe through them.

He must have started out alone because what he remembered was Dean, crawling inside with him. Cold hands, Dean had cold hands but they were solid and big, big enough that they covered Sam's completely.

"It's okay," Dean whispered to him. "Don't cry, Sammy, nothing's gonna happen. I got you."

"I dreamed about monsters," Sam whispered back, low and tight, as if the monsters might hear him if he was too loud. "I dreamed about monsters and I woke up all by myself! You weren't here."

"Not by yourself," Dean said. "I was right over in that bed. I'm here with you." His hands were warming up as they rubbed against Sam's, tight and steady. So tight it almost hurt, but Sam didn't mind. It was a good hurt. It was Dean.

Still... "The next bed is too far. What if you weren't here?" Sam had to ask. "What if something got you and I didn't know?"

"Don't be a moron," Dean hissed. His mouth was pressed close, breathing warm, sour air against Sam's forehead. "Nothing can even get close to me."

Sam bit his lip and peered at Dean. He was fuzzy and gray in the dark, but his hands gripped just as hard around Sam's wrists. "You promise you'll always be here?"

Sam couldn't see Dean roll his eyes but his voice sounded just like when Dean did. "Duh, I promise," Dean said. "Quit asking stupid questions."

Sam didn't remember falling asleep, but he must have done that next.

 

Sam figured out pretty early that it wasn't that big of a deal if he went to a friend's house after school, but that the one thing that was never okay was bringing them back home. He made that mistake exactly once, in the third grade, with Billy Watson. He and Billy usually ate lunch together and Billy kept asking and asking and he'd gone to Billy's house a couple of times already so... he did it.

Billy's mom had come to drop him off and the second Sam saw her he knew it was wrong. She had a pinched look on her face when she saw the tiny efficiency that they were staying in. Her eyebrows knit even tighter when she realized that dad wasn't around, just Dean.

"I'm sorry," she said firmly. "Billy won't be able to stay without adult supervision." She gave Dean a tight little smile and walked her son out the door. She didn't look at Sam at all.

"Uptight bitch," Dean sneered. Sam didn't know for sure she heard that, but she stiffened and walked faster. Sam shivered and stared after her, hearing the sharp slap-clack as her heels clicked against the pavement.

It took him a second to follow her and he didn't know why he did it, except he'd gone over to her house with Billy once, stopped there on the school bus and she hadn't... She'd smiled and given them cookies and milk. Really good milk, not the powdered kind Dean got sometimes from school or the food pantry that tasted like water when you made it up.

"Mrs. W," Sam called after her. "Wait, what--" he got as far as the car, as far as her side, just as she was climbing in.

Sam didn't even look at Billy, he looked at her, because she gave him milk and now, now she was looking at him like he was the kind of gross stuff Dean put in Sam's shoes because he was stupid. Mouth all pursed tight and strange. "Mrs. W--"

"Not now, Sam," she said, sharp and breathing a little fast. Sam almost put his hand on the door and then she pushed him away. Not hard, Sam had gotten pushed way harder than that, but hard enough. Still, it was mostly surprise and not force that made him fall sprawling back onto the pavement. He yelped when he scraped the skin of his elbows against it.

The tires of Mrs. Watson and Billy's car squealed and Dean came running, shouting something really loud about "bitches, fucking bitches."

Sam didn't even know he was crying, his elbow didn't hurt near bad enough to cry so he had no idea. Not until Dean knelt down next to him and put his arm under Sam's shoulder, helping him up and rubbing the wet off his cheek. "Don't worry," Dean whispered. "Don't cry. People like that are nothing. Stupid. Stupid uptight bitches. If she weren't a girl I'd kick her ass."

Sam nodded, but he didn't stop crying. Not until Dean took him inside and curled up on the couch with him so they could watch wrestling on tv, even if Sam was starting to think wrestling was kind of stupid. He liked watching it with Dean, laughing and sitting so close they were almost on top of each other.

"People suck," Dean told him, loud and firm when it was obvious Sam was feeling better and could talk about it again. "But they don't matter."

"They can't all suck. I don't want to be by myself, Dean," Sam whispered, tucking his head into Dean's shoulder and looking up at him from there.

"Well, you won't be," Dean said and rolled his eyes, making a face like it was funny. "Me and Dad--"

Sam shook his head, feeling the softness of Dean's t-shirt against his skin when he moved. "You," he said, loud and sharp. "Dad's always gone. You have to stay."

"Duh," Dean whispered. "Of course."

Billy didn't sit with him at lunch much after that and sometimes Sam could hear the other kids whispering about why. Sam tried not to mind though because Dean got them real milk all the time now. Dean watched tv with him and not just wrestling. Dean was... Dean wasn't going to let him be alone.

They moved about a month after that anyway and he'd learned his lesson about having people over. Sam didn't need to learn it again.

 

When Sam was ten and Dean was fourteen, the thing that they never talk about... there was that. Sam sort of knew what it was, the sex stuff, mostly because he helped Dean figure out how to unscramble the pay channels when they stayed at motels.

It actually looked weird to him, strange, ugly looking people like no one Sam had ever seen in real life, all twisted up, but Dean liked it. Got all grinny and breathless and hid under the covers squirming while Sam rolled his eyes and went to do something else.

He'd seen people kissing too, a lot of the times people came to the same motels as them and actually stood around kissing in the doorways. Like, with their mouths all over each other, spitty and gross. It was just that thing that happened wasn't like either of those.

It didn't happen right away. Dad was gone a while, and Sam knew he'd left money, paid the rent in advance and everything because the landlady didn't come to scream about it. He'd left money, except after two weeks Dean started to get this pinched look on his face. First he stopped ordering pizza and made them eat stuff that looked like it came from the school lunch room, but Dad still didn't come home. Then Dad called and had a long conversation with Dean, not even saying hi to Sam or anything but Sam didn't mind because whatever he and Dean were talking about sounded bad.

After he hung up Dean sat down at the kitchen table to count out the dollar bills Dad had left them under the counter. He did that for a while, getting more pinched up and biting his lip the more he did it. Counting them over and over, like he was expecting to get a different number if he kept doing it enough.

"Shit," Dean mumbled while Sam hovered nearby, watching him. "Fuck. Fuck."

"What is it, Dean?" Sam finally asked. "Dad'll be mad if he knows you were swearing like that." He grabbed the chair next to Dean and pushed it closer so he could see too. The pile of bills looked pretty small from that angle. Sam sighed and figured that meant they were going to eat macaroni and cheese a whole lot.

"Dad won't know though, because you won't tell him, buttface," Dean said, but he didn't really sound like he meant it at all so Sam didn't get mad he just settled in and waited. "He's gonna be gone a while longer, Sammy. I'm going to have to figure out how to get some money." Dean's voice had gotten a lot quieter.

Sam settled his hands on his palms and thought about it. Money. He wasn't even sure where Dad got money. He sighed and closed his eyes, still thinking. "Okay," he finally said. "I can collect cans and stuff. And like, we can fix up the neighbor lady's yard. She said yesterday that her back hurt really bad and she couldn't."

Dean just stared at him for a long second, as if he couldn't believe that Sam had just said that at all, which was stupid because Sam had thought about it really hard and those were good ideas. It wasn't like they could really get jobs or anything, right? But before he had a chance to get mad Dean just gave him this quick smile and leaned over, throwing one arm around Sam's shoulder and tugging him in real close.

"Yeah," Dean said, and the way his voice sounded, all quiet and maybe even a little scared, that knocked all the mad right out of Sam. "Thank you, Sam. That would be really great. If you could do that stuff. That would be awesome."

Dean even acted like it was great. Sam got like, thirty dollars worth of cans in one weekend, just scrounging around, and the neighbor lady paid him another ten for her yard on Sunday. When he brought it back to Dean, Dean hugged him hard and told him how great it was, so Sam went to bed mostly happy and only a little bit worried.

He was tired enough from all the work that he almost slept through the sound of Dean shutting the front door. The door squeaked though, a nasty squealy sound, so he heard it. Heard it and hid under the covers, eyes wide open and trying not to wonder where Dean had gone, even as it got later. Time ticked by and it just kept getting later. Really, really late when the door finally squeaked again and Dean came stumbling in, the sound of his boots on the scuffed wood floorboards letting Sam close his eyes at last.

He fell asleep to the sound of the shower running.

When he asked Dean about it over breakfast-- which was cereal and real milk, not more stupid macaroni-- Dean just made a nasty face. "Dude. Don't ask, Sammy. Just eat your god damn breakfast, okay?"

Sam stuck out his tongue but he didn't ask. No one ever told him anything, so there was no point asking. Instead, when Dean told him he had to go to bed that night he kept all his clothes ready to go on the chair outside with his just in case knife tucked into the jeans, and waited for the sound of Dean sneaking out. He got dressed really quick and followed after.

Dean was dressed funny, that was the first thing Sam noticed. He had on a really old t-shirt that was way too small and jeans dad had told him to throw out because they had holes in the seat you could see bare skin through. He was walking real straight though, like he walked through the halls when they went to a new school. Like he wanted to make sure everyone knew he was the toughest one, which Sam always thought was pretty stupid, because of course Dean was the toughest. Who didn't know that?

They just walked a while and Sam started to worry about maybe getting caught, but Dean didn't even look back. Not paying attention. Which was mega-weird. The thing was that Sam didn't know. Later, later he'd be so mad at himself for being stupid, for not knowing. Not getting what was going on, what Dean was doing.

Not until Dean met up with a man about two blocks from their building and ducked into an alley with him. The man was old. Like dad's age old, Sam thought, so... old. Old and big and he had this look, like he'd been waiting a while. Sam didn't know what to expect, so he ducked back behind the dumpster. And he watched. The man handed Dean a thin roll of green and Dean tucked it away into his boot, but Sam still had no idea what he was seeing.

Not until he watched that guy push his brother up against the bricks, big, meaty looking hands on Dean's wrists. And he'd seen sex-- he had, he watched the porn channels with the stupid, jiggling people, but he had never seen it be Dean. Making those sounds, different from the television, lower and rougher, like maybe it hurt, with his face shoved into the bricks.

"Slut," the man growled, the old, ugly man that Sam didn't know. "Whore." Then he did something, something it was too dark for Sam to really see, but he didn't have to see. He heard Dean scream. Dean never screamed.

Sam didn't need anything else to make him pull out the just in case knife. He knew what he was supposed to do, where to aim. From behind was the best, Dad had shown him how, and the man had his back to Sam so it was perfect. He could even hear Dad's voice in his head. Behind and get the kidneys, Sammy. Go hard, hard as you can. Go hard.

The man didn't even scream. He made a thick gasping noise and fell down and off of Dean so fast that Sam had to jump out of the way or he'd have fallen right on top of him. Dean was the one who made a noise, sharp and bitten off, like that had hurt him for some reason.

"Dean," Sam whispered, reaching over the man on the ground like he wasn't even there. "Dean, are you okay?"

Dean's face was a sick white in the street lights, like he had the flu. "Holy fuck," he whispered. "Holy fuck. What the hell are you doing here?"

"He was hurting you," Sam said. "That man. He was hurting you." Dean shuddered all over, as though he was cold. His pants were around his ankles so he was probably cold, but when Sam tried to help him he just made another noise, low and harsh, and jumped back. "Dean, are you okay?" Sam repeated in a whisper.

"Fine," Dean said back. He didn't sound fine, but saying it seemed to help. He stood up straight again and pulled on his pants anyway. Then he stared down at the man, gurgling on the ground and at Sam's hand with the knife in it. "Jesus, Sammy."

"He was bad," Sam said.

Dean took a sharp breath but didn't say anything for a minute. Then he knelt down by the man. Paused. Covered his hand with his shirt and reached in and pulled the man's wallet out. When he got up again his face was still white, pinched like it hurt to stand. When Sam got closer to help him Dean let him.

"Okay," Dean said. "Okay. He's not dead. I don't know if--- I don't know. We'll call 911 from a pay phone and then... he won't want to say. What he was doing."

"But he was bad," Sam repeated. He hated the little kid softness in his voice, but not as much as he hated the way Dean looked at him, with big hollow eyes. "If he was hurting me you would have--"

"Yeah. Yeah, okay," Dean said, cutting Sam off. But he nodded and the look on his face wasn't as scary for just a second. "But you're not me. Now we really gotta get out of here, okay?" Sam nodded, especially when Dean let him stay close, really close on the way back, clutching his knife and ready to get anyone that tried anything.

Once they were inside again, Dean locked the door and both deadbolts before he took Sam to the bathroom. "You got blood on your clothes," he whispered. "We'll have to burn them"

Sam nodded and let Dean pull them off. Dean's hands were shaking really hard, but Sam pretended not to notice so Dean wouldn't get mad. He didn't mind. Didn't mind when Dean dragged them both into the shower either, with the water turned on real hot.

It almost hurt it was so hot, but Dean's hands clutched at Sam so hard that he didn't mind.

Later, Sam climbed right into Dean's bed, and Dean didn't say a word, just pushed back the blankets and let him in. "You can't tell Dad," he hissed. "Okay, Sammy? Please, whatever happens. Don't tell Dad."

Sam put his head on Dean's shoulder and Dean acted like he'd said yes and hugged Sam really close. He didn't promise, though. Sam wasn't stupid. This... it was because Dad went away. Dad went away and didn't leave enough money, and if Dad was that stupid and thought nothing bad happened he might do it again. This could happen again.

Sam put his hand on Dean's and didn't say anything, but he practiced what he was going to say to Dad in his head, to make sure that he never did this again. They had to be really good words because Sam really wanted his dad to be so sorry. He practiced saying it in the mirror, so that he'd get it right, so that Dad would know.

"It's your fault," he said. "It's because of you."

He had it really down when Dad finally got back after another week of making them wait. He had to wait until Dean was asleep, but that was the hardest part. Dad looked really old and sad, but Sam didn't care. It was Dad's fault so he should be sad. It was all his fault.

Sam didn't know if Dad said anything to Dean or not afterwards, if they ever said anything to each other. But he never went away for so very long again. Not until people really believed Dean was as old as the fake ID that said he was eighteen, and that was enough for Sam. It wasn't as though anyone wanted to talk about it.

Sam tried not to wonder how Dean always acted like the whole thing never happened. After all, he acted the same way and no one ever told him it was wrong, like maybe that was one of those things you were just supposed to know. Sam never did much wondering why he didn't feel bad about what he'd done.

All his nightmares, but never one about his knife and the blood spurting hot on his hands.

 

When Sam was the one who was fourteen he started at a small high school in upstate New York, in the middle of the year. It was different from at least the last three schools, what with its bright scrubbed kids who carried backpacks that cost more than every single piece of clothing Sam owned and the well kept grounds, but it wasn't that rare.

It definitely wasn't the first time that he and Dean had been shuffled off to a school where both people and things were way out of their price range; things that hid out in the dark lived in nice neighborhoods too. It was just that usually the school administration took one look at a couple of threadbare kids, one of them who had a mouth like, well, Dean, and wrote them off.

This time was different for two reasons. One, Dean never even bothered to enroll. They were on a hunt, and he was raring to go and dad was more than ready to let him. And two, this time someone got the bright idea to just give Sam a placement test to see how much remedial work he'd need.

To everyone's surprise, including his own, it turned out he didn't need any. Sam tested right into the advanced classes. And oh boy did the school notice that, at least after they made him take the test a second time to make sure he wasn't cheating or something. Like he would. Like it would even have occurred to him.

He had no idea what to expect, because advanced classes? He liked books, sure, but it wasn't a thing. His dad liked books too. Sam wasn't some kind of genius or anything.

The first period of the day when he was introduced around, everyone stared at him, not even in a mean way, just boggled. Sam just gritted his teeth and took a seat at the back of the class. The dark-haired girl at the next desk gave him a careful up and down look and frowned.

Sam tightened his hands on his pencil until it snapped, which just gave everyone a chance to stare at him. The teacher blinked and turned away from the board. "Mr. Winchester," she said, mildly, "Why don't you share your thoughts on the connections between the first and second world wars."

Sam rolled his eyes, scanned the page of the textbook in front of him and regurgitated until the teacher stopped looking at him. By the time she moved on to her next victim he was able to slide back into his seat and no one was looking at him.

After class the dark-haired girl caught him in the hall. "Dude, what you're wearing won't work. You look like a freak," she said, straight out and easy. Not even mocking.

"And who the fuck are you?" Sam spat without even thinking about filtering the words through his brain.

"The person who's going to do you a favor," she said and winked at him. "There's a thrift store down on the Parkway," she said. "You can get some really good stuff there. Stuff like everyone else is wearing." She rubbed a hand over her sweater and then leaned in a little closer, so that she was whispering in his ear. Her breath smelled like sugar. "They don't watch too hard for five fingered discounts either."

She smirked and walked down the hall, leaving Sam staring after her.

The girl-- Sam found out her name was Rose from paying attention when the roll got called. She smiled at him the next time she saw him decked out in jeans that fit right and with a little alligator on the pocket of his t-shirt.

It was even better when she kissed him under the stairs, sure and steady, her red painted fingernails digging through the tight fabric of the shirt until they pricked skin.

"You're all right," she told him and tugged at a stray strand of his hair. He panted into her mouth and stared at her and let her push him back against the wall even though he had to be twice her size. She kissed like she wanted to eat him or fight him and Sam let her, went loose and pliant and wide open for her when she smiled.

"Rose, right?" he whispered when she stopped kissing him.

"Yeah," she said. She ran a fingertip over his mouth and he let his lips part without thinking about it. "So, you can come by my house and pick me up at eight. We'll go down to the park."

He nodded hard.

When Sam got home from school, his lips still red and swollen from kissing Rose, Dean was sitting on the couch, watching the Simpsons. He turned it off when Sam came in though, took one look at him, at his mouth, and made this... this face-- a swallowing lemons face. It flickered by so fast that Sam figured he'd imagined it, because the next thing he knew Dean was grinning like a dumbass and making a broad thumbs up gesture.

"Awesome, Sammy, you got some lip-lock," he crowed and jumped up to smack Sam on the back. "I thought I was gonna have to buy you a doll to practice on, dude. Wait, it wasn't a doll was it?" Dean grinned, like he was cracking himself up.

Sam rolled his eyes. "No, Dean," he said, slowly, with every bit of put upon patience in him. "It wasn't a doll. Shut up."

Dean just laughed like he was gonna choke himself doing it. "Doll," he sniggered. "Come on, tell me all about her or else she was definitely a doll."

Sam came that close to smacking him one just to make him shut up. Except Dean was watching him, eager, now that he'd stopped laughing. Almost intent, his eyes on Sam's mouth. Sam sucked in his lower lip. "She-- it's a girl at school. Her name's Rose."

Dean nodded. He patted the place on the couch next to him and Sam came and sat down. "Rose, huh?" Dean said gravely, the teasing temporarily stilled. "That's a good name. I was scared you were gonna end up with an Ethel or something geeky like that. When I was fourteen I had plenty of... oh, never mind."

"Dean," Sam hissed. He had an idea of what Dean might have said. Or maybe he didn't.

But Dean just grinned and settled one hand on Sam's knee. "Don't worry, dude. I'm gonna give you the benefit of my superior looks and experience. You are so gonna score with your Rose doll with me on your side."

"You're such an asshole," Sam muttered, but he didn't shove Dean's hand off, just let it rest where it was, warm and heavy on his jeans and tried to tune out all the really crazy shit Dean was telling him and pretend he had no clue about what Dean had gotten up to at fourteen. It was always easiest that way.

Dean just laughed at him when he tried to back off anyway, and then curled closer, close enough that Sam could feel his breath. He smelled of root beer and Cheetos. It was that smell that followed him into his dreams that night, the scent and feel of Dean in between flashes of Rose and her kisses, her nails digging into his skin. Dean's hands and her hands. Sam woke up with wet thighs and an aching dick but of course it was all for Rose. It had to be.

They stuck around in that town for an entire semester. By the end of it Sam had a set of clothes that weren't hand-me-downs from anyone he knew personally, a transcript full of A's and a mark on his permanent record that said he belonged on the advanced track and that schools ought to want him. And he had more experience finding secret places to make out than anyone he knew, other than Dean, who had clearly been found on a doorstep in a basket left by a pack of succubi, because there was no way he and Sam could be related.

Anyway, it was a start. Leaving the town-- leaving Rose... well, Sam was used to that. It didn't bother him as much as it should have when they pulled out of town, especially when Dean climbed into the backseat with him instead of riding shotgun with Dad like usual.

"Don't worry," Dean murmured and ruffled Sam's hair. His eyes were green and bright in the sunlight. "This town sucked anyway. And I swear, your next girl's gonna put out if I have to find you one myself."

That summer, between school semesters, some hunter guy Sam wasn't really introduced to gave them a tip and Dad started filling out those credit card applications. Things with money mostly got a lot less tight, even if it was also a lot less legal. Sam felt weirdly guilty for how grateful he was for it, as if the worst thing about having no money was being weird at school and not-- other stuff.

It was all Dad's fault anyway, right from the beginning, so Sam kept the gratitude between his teeth and spit out the annoyance instead, like all he really cared about was that his Dad was one step closer to being just another petty criminal.

He kept quiet about everything important just like he knew he was supposed to, but sometimes Sam really made himself sick.

 

They spent most of the summer in the car. Long nights of staring out the window or sleeping curled up in the back under Dad's worn out army blanket or Dean's leather jacket. When they stopped it was hard hunting or harder training and Sam gritted his teeth through most of it. But it was a good summer when he remembered it later. For once, Dean didn't even seem that eager to find his own girls for a while. As far as Sam knew there were none at all from the time his finals were over until he was enrolled in a new school in September. Instead he hung close to Sam, like the way he had when they'd been kids, before he started going out hunting with Dad all the time. Before the thing they didn't talk about.

That meant a lot of hovering and way too much of Dean trying to correct Sam's grip on a knife during weapons training, as if Sam didn't already know how to do it from the time he was a little kid. It got ridiculous until Sam had to learn how to do it better than Dean in self-defense, but he didn't say a word to Dean to make it stop. He never even wanted to, not with the way Dean's hands felt on him, warm and heavy, steady as stone. It made Sam's stomach flutter and twist, almost like kissing Rose had, even though of course Rose was completely different.

Dean hovering also meant a warm body sliding in beside him at night, not exactly crawling into his bed, but sitting on the edge and telling him all kinds of crazy stories that Sam didn't actually believe but liked listening to anyway.

Sometimes, though, it got weird enough that Sam didn't know what to do with it, just that he wanted it to keep happening. Dean always sat close, but sometimes he watched Sam with a look on his face, like he was thinking way too hard and didn't like where it was leading him. Sam started to really recognize that look because it would lead right into the, "You're growing up, time for more weapons training" speech. It got to the point he didn't even bother to wait to get out his knives, he just went right for them.

Sam really didn't mind though. Once he really got the idea, once he knew for sure that Dean was watching, he started to play around with what he could do, how close he could slide to Dean, how pretty he could flirt with a girl waiting at the bus stop, how long it could take him to lick his way through an ice cream cone. Anything to get Dean to look at him a little harder.

It felt like being on the cusp of something but Sam didn't know what. Just that he missed it when things went back to normal about the time that school started up again. Sam studying, and Dean training and chasing any girl that invited him to do it. Maybe it was all that sex that brought Dean back to his plan A of gonna get Sammy some.

So that was how Sam had sex for the first time the day of his fifteenth birthday. She was no one he knew himself, no one he would have picked, but she was Dean's girl of the moment. Sam never figured out why, other than that she was there. Her name was Alice Green, and Sam remembered it a long time after Dean forgot.

It was in her room on her bed while her parents were out somewhere. She was eighteen and her room smelled of old lace and baby soft perfume.

Sam met her at a party he hadn't even wanted to go to, except Dean told him there was no way he was sitting home with a book on his frigging birthday, so don't be lame Sam. Had half dragged him until Sam rolled his eyes and went with it, just to get him to shut up.

Alice had come right up to them the second they walked in the door, making a beeline for Dean like she was a magnet and he was the north pole or something.

She had a sweet, round face and black eyes and Dean had been drunk and laughing when he introduced her to Sam. "Sam, this is the hottest girl on the planet, dude. Alice, this is my baby brother, Sam," he said and laughed louder when Sam rolled his eyes at the lame. Dean winked and grinned his sly, I'm so smooth grin, the one that always irritated the hell out of Sam.

They'd talked about nothing and Sam had tried not to watch the way Alice watched Dean. Soft eyed, clinging to his arm like he was her big hero. Dean was, that was the weird thing, just nothing like the way she thought. Sam didn't say that, just talked about nothing, the school basket ball team and chemistry, while Dean fed them both beers until Sam's world got just a little hazy and sideways.

"Alice," Dean said about four beers in, smooth and easy and absolutely ridiculous. "It's Sammy's birthday. I mean, you know, I'd really like it if you wanted to spend some time with him. You're so awesome. You'll be nice to him won't you?"

Dean was looking at Sam even when he was talking to her. More than looking, almost leering, smiling, sloppy drunk and smug, good looking as a male model in leather. Dean was looking at Sam, so only Sam was looking at Alice. He saw the sudden stillness, the shocked way she bit her lip. "Dean, I don't--" she whispered.

"Come on," Dean urged. He was smiling, cooing almost, like he thought he was so, so cool. He was smiling, but he was still looking at Sam, like the girl was invisible. "I really like you, Alice, come on. I mean, it's not a huge big deal, is it?"

The sad thing, was Sam didn't think Dean even knew what he was doing. Sam knew though, he knew better. But Dean was bright and drunk and so pleased with himself, finding a birthday present for his kid brother. Sam knew, and so did Alice. He could tell from the look on her face. It was a huge big deal to her, it really was.

She told Sam. Told him what she thought while he lay there on her bed, jeans around his ankles and wrists bound up with a frayed Chinese jump rope that wore into his skin. When he closed his eyes, he remembered Dean and big, meaty hands on Dean's wrists. When he opened them Alice was glaring down like he'd ruined the world.

"I hate you," she hissed. "You're a pathetic brat. I hate him. I don't know why I'm doing this." Sam shook his head and didn't say he didn't know why she was doing it if she hated him either. He didn't know why either of them were doing this except for that eager, open look on Dean's face.

He didn't say anything, just squeezed his eyes shut when she put her hands on his cock and jerked him off, hard and rough. He didn't know why he was doing this. Her hands were small and tight and he whimpered. He didn't know why but he didn't want to stop.

"You like it," she told him and jerked hard, twisting her wrist until he arched up. That was it, he came all over himself, in sticky warm waves. Harder then he'd ever made himself come with his own hands. "Pathetic."

Dean met him practically on her doorsteps, all gleeful smiles, like Sam had done something really amazing. He clapped him on the back and grinned at the marks on his wrists. Red and gouged deep, where he'd fought the rope without realizing he was doing it.

"Bondage, Sammy?" he whistled. "You're growing up hardcore."

"It wasn't--" Sam said, but Dean just laughed, like he was delighted. Like he was proud. Sam leaned away when Dean tried to clap him on the shoulder one more time.

"Yeah, yeah, you're awesome. Takes an older woman to make you a man."

Sam shrugged and didn't say anything, but he never let Dean push a girl at him again. Dean never stopped trying either and Sam didn't want to think about why. Especially when Dean's eyes always seemed to follow him after he turned the girls down, big and green, like he couldn't look away from Sam no matter what.

Sam knew what it was. It was just Dean trying to make him happy, that was all. It wasn't Dean's fault Sam had no clue what being happy would even mean.

It definitely wasn't Dean's fault if he thought that being happy was this.

Sam lost a big part of what was left of his virginity the summer after his sophomore year and it was a disaster from start to finish. Except for when it wasn't.

It started when Dad packed him into the back of the Impala like that much extra luggage about five minutes after his finals were over. He didn't even get his grades until the fall, when they got sent to a new school. Of course Dad and Dean acted like it was weird that even bothered him.

Sam stared out the window at nothing and tried not to hear when they called it sulking.

"Dude, come on," Dean finally said a few hours down the road. "Quit it with the silent treatment, Sammy." Sam just rolled his eyes and didn't look at him. Not until Dean climbed over the seat into the back with him, ignoring Dad's good natured (always good natured with Dean) griping.

"Hey, come on," Dean repeated and smacked the back of his head. He let his hand rest there after, light and steady on the back of Sam's neck. "This is gonna be an awesome hunt, Sam. You might even get to meet a real fairy princess for you to imitate."

"The Fae are no joke, Dean," Dad called from the front, loud but not like he was really mad. "The lore is pretty clear that we're not talking about a Victorian flower fairy here. You take them seriously."

"Yes, sir," Dean said, snapping right to it. Sam bit his lip and didn't say anything. "Of course."

Dean meant it too. Especially when they got to the source of the problem, in a creepy little shantytown in the Appalachian foothills. The place was grimier in comparison to the town they'd just left, but Sam figured it would always have looked nasty. There was one torn up, potholed Main Street, half emptied out when the local coal mine closed down.

When they pulled into a dessicated no-name motel, the woman behind the counter got wide eyed and looked at them weird when Dad pulled out a credit card. "We usually get cash," she muttered, but she took it anyway.

They found out all the people disappearing were actually kids. Mostly really young, but the oldest were teenagers Sam's age.

Then Dad and Dean got grim and Sam didn't have much to say for himself either. He just watched and waited and did his research. Pages of out of date typeface, brittle paper and crumbling microfilm full of stories about changelings and moonlight, exactly the kind of stories the local people here would have brought with them from Scotland and Ireland hundreds of years ago.

Missing kids, missing kids. "Not babies," Sam whispered out loud to the book he was reading. The pages were yellow-brittle and smelled of thickly spread decay, like the book might collapse into dust at any second. "It's usually babies."

The newspapers were all about kids though, and too old to match up to any changeling Sam had ever heard about.

The next morning the town was full of whispered rumors about a missing boy, captain of the junior varsity foot ball team. A favorite. A tall kid, a strong kid, gone like he'd never been there. They found out about it from the diner waitress at breakfast when she looked right at Dad and told him he'd better watch out for his boy, looking meaningfully at Sam.

Dad just frowned and looked at Sam too, with narrow lidded eyes and a jaw wired tight enough to snap. "You don't go anywhere without your brother or me along," he said as soon as the waitress was out of earshot.

"I have cold iron and Rowan, I--" Sam began. The protest was almost a reflex and so was Dad's response, cutting right through what Sam was trying to say.

"No chances, Sam. You'll do what I say. I won't have anything happening to either of you."

"He's right, Sammy," Dean chimed in brightly and then grinned while he speared a home fry off of Sam's plate and popped it into his mouth for some open mouthed chewing. "Don't worry, we don't mind baby sitting."

"You suck," Sam muttered under his breath, which didn't stop Dad from glaring or Dean from smirking. He fingered his favorite knife where it rested under his pant leg and told himself that they were being overprotective assholes again.

He thought that right up until he was walking from the library to the motel, just between sunset and real dark. Alone, which was totally not his fault but Dean's for being an hour worth of late. Sam didn't want to wait for it to get really dark, the roads weren't exactly well lit around here and getting hit by a car would get you just as dead as a pissed off fairy.

The dusk got deeper as Sam broke into a run. He missed his bike, the one they'd had to leave at their last rental because there wasn't exactly room in the Impala for it. Running was good too though especially when he got into the zone. The pavement slapping under his feet while he ate up distance. His head off somewhere else, trying to put together his research into something that made sense.

Fae. Disappearing boys. They'd all been boys. It didn't make sense and Sam had the half blasphemous idea that maybe his dad was wrong and it wasn't Fae at all, it was something else entirely.

He thought that right up until he turned down an unlit street and blinked bright moonlight out of his eyes and saw her. She smiled at him, giving him a wide up and down assessing look. "Child," she whispered. "Child. Such a pretty child."

She was milk pale and ragged by moonlight, thinner and hollower than the local women. When she stepped closer it was fast, before Sam had time to unfreeze, to grab at his knife.

"You have the look of my son," she whispered and her fingers danced over Sam's hair. They were thin, so thin that if her skin were a degree lighter Sam thought he would have seen the bone shining through in the moonlight.

"Pretty as one of us. Will you not kiss me?" she asked. He swallowed hard and shook his head.

"One kiss for your mother before you go off to tiend," she mumbled, like she didn't see, didn't hear. "One kiss. Please."

Sam didn't know why he did it. There were tears in her eyes, wide and silver wet and she was shaking like she was freezing to death. He shivered and leaned in to kiss one paper thin, translucent cheek.

"Oh," she moaned "Oh. You make me happy, child. None of the others... So long since I have been happy. I'll make you a gift." Then she smiled, sweet and slow, the expression making her young again. Her skin was smooth and her eyes shone like stars. "Something you don't even know to want. Something you don't know you can have."

Before Sam could move back she sprang forward, mouth stretched wide and grinning. She seized him by the shoulders and kissed him, pressing her mouth over each eyelid and then onto his forehead. "Sit and wait. Sit and wait and you'll have a present."

She laughed and Sam stared at her. Stared and stared until his eyes went dry and when he blinked she was gone. He blinked a second time and then realized where he was sitting, where she had pushed him down. In a circle of toadstools, wide and round and perfect. He shuddered and got up. He couldn't stay, shouldn't stay.

He was poised to run when he saw someone coming up the road. The figure was blurry and insubstantial in the dark, through the circle.

"Sam!" That someone called. "Sammy." But Sam knew even before he heard the voice that it was Dean.

"Dean!" he yelled back. The relief radiated like a hot knife, loosening his body, making him smile all at once. Everything was going to be fine. "I'm over here."

Dean was smiling at him too when he got close enough to see. White toothed and unthinkingly bright and easy. Sam waited for him to go off about how Sam should have stayed put and waited at the damn library, how he was just asking for a kick in the ass or whatever. He didn't even care, he was that glad to see Dean.

Sam waited but Dean just stepped through the circle like he didn't even see it. "Hi Sam," he said, light and easy, something in his tone that was weirdly familiar but Sam couldn't figure out what it was. He knew as much about his brother as anyone, but he wasn't sure what to make of Dean's expression. "Dude, I'm glad I found you. I was worried."

Sam almost apologized and then just shrugged. "Dude, you were an hour late. They were closing the library."

Dean smiled again and rubbed his fingers over the back of his neck. "Yeah. I got-- there was a-- uh. Yeah. Sorry about that." He frowned half way through the sentence and then seemed to shrug it off. Sam's gut clenched again. Dean should be angry that Sam ditched the library. Why wasn't he angry? Something was way off. Way off.

"C'mere a sec," Sam muttered and didn't wait for Dean to respond before going to him. It wasn't far, but he had the knife out of his sheath before he got there. Dean didn't even flinch when Sam pressed the flat of it against the bare skin of his arm. The cold iron would have burned him if he'd been-- something else. Sam breathed out.

"Dude," Dean said and gave a rueful grin. He caught Sam's knife hand by the wrist, circling it lightly in his fingers and Sam let him because it was Dean."You really do think it's fairies, huh?"

Sam rolled his eyes, relief mixing quickly with annoyance. "Just making sure. Who knows what could have gotten you while you were out there being late."

"Yeah, about that." Dean frowned and for a second Sam could almost see the expected anger. Then it flickered out and Dean's expression went familiar-strange again. Like he wasn't quite in focus, like Sam was seeing him through a haze of bar smoke. Then it snapped into place-- that was what he looked like, wearing that expression. Dean at a bar, racking up a pool cue. Smiling at the girl he was planning on taking home, all cheesy-sleazy and stupidly happy. Dean was smiling at Sam, the way he had when he set him up with Alice Green, like Sam was the only one he could really see.

"You're asking for trouble out all by yourself, kiddo," Dean drawled, light lazy. His thumb rubbed across the inside of Sam's wrist, reminding Sam that Dean was still holding on to him right there, by the wrists. "Shouldn't be all alone, Sammy."

Sam blinked and then pulled his hand back, hard. Dean's fingers tightened on him and in the process Sam's knife landed in the grass with a soft thump. "Dean," Sam hissed. "What the fuck?"

"Sam," Dean said and rolled his eyes. "Don't freak out on me. Didn't anyone teach you not to drop your weapon?" Then he grinned and closed what little distance had opened up between them. "Come here, seriously. It's okay."

Sam didn't have a chance to say anything, not before Dean was right up on him, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin. Dean's hand wasn't gentle, but it was solid and steady, cupping Sam's chin and raising Sam's face to look at him. Sam hadn't even noticed when he stopped looking.

"Hey," Dean said. His breath tasted sweet, like fresh grass and milk. Sam didn't know that he was tasting Dean's breath until Dean started kissing him. Firm, not rough. The scrape of stubble, like Dean hadn't shaved in a while. Careful. Sam made a sound he didn't recognize and stood there, statute still until Dean started to coax his lips apart.

He gasped and pushed his brother back. Fuck. His brother. The brother who was nearer than skin. His pulse was thrumming so hard in his ears and he could feel it like the hot blush spreading over his skin. "Dean," he whispered. "I don't--"

"It's okay," Dean told him. His eyes were green in the moonlight and he kissed Sam again. Easy, easy, like asking a question. "You're game, aren't you?" His knee pressed up between Sam's thighs. "Up for it," Dean said and smirked. "I've been waiting for you."

It was too much. Sam could feel Dean against his body, muscle and heat. Heavy. It wasn't fair. He bit his lower lip. "What is this?" he said. "You run out of creepy-kinky girls to fuck and you're on to the next kink?" But Dean wouldn't do that. Sam knew that Dean wouldn't do this. But the cold iron had no effect.

If not fae, then what? "Christo," Sam whispered.

Dean blinked. He looked weirdly hurt, like the time Sam had accidentally on purpose dropped the live spiders in Dean's favorite boots. "So, what is it? I'm a fae in disguise, possessed, or just that much of an asshole?" he said. The words sounded like they were supposed to sting, but Dean's hands were on Sam's shoulders, massaging, soothing.

"Yes?" Sam winced when his voice cracked. High and broken, like a stupid little kid. He could feel the heat of Dean's body like it was under his skin, screwing up his head and making his dick throb. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with Dean? "You never wanted me before."

"Of course I did." Dean laughed, a low, happy sound, rumbling in Sam's ear. Sam hardly realized that he was spreading his legs until Dean was all the way between them, keeping him balanced. "Did you want me?" he asked. "Tell me, Sammy. You can tell me. I've been watching you for years."

Sam bit his lip and shook his head wordlessly. He couldn't say. He couldn't even know.

"I had this picture in my head of what you'd be like," Dean whispered. His mouth was blood warm and soft against Sam's temple. Almost chaste. All of him except the hard dick pressing into the hollow of Sam's hip.

"You didn't," Sam muttered, more reflex than actual disagreement. He could feel Dean's breath, the close warmth of muscle and skin and the silky crinkle of his chest hair. "You never thought about this."

"I thought of you being like a blushing little virgin, you know?" Dean said and smirked, like Sam hadn't said a word. "I know you're not, cause I fixed that for you, but it's a pretty hot fantasy. I never corrupted a virgin before. But you, you're so different from me."

Sam snorted and rolled his eyes despite how weird this all was. Never mind the ache in the pit of his gut. He ignored it and let himself lean into Dean a little closer. "Yeah, right."

"I know you're not," Dean repeated, but the edge of mockery was gone. That just made Sam's stomach hurt worse, Dean looking so serious. "This is good too. I want you to be different from me, believe me. This... it really is okay." His hands were gentle now, nothing like Sam had expected. Sam had expected nothing. Not from Dean, not this way. No one had ever told him this was allowed.

He bit his lip, clamping down on the edge with his teeth until Dean leaned down and kissed his mouth again. Carefully, like someone with all the time in the world to tease Sam into opening for him. Like someone way more romantic than anything Sam had ever seen from him.

"Anything would be good, Sam," Dean told him and cupped his face with careful hands. Just watching for a moment. Dean's eyes were green and wide, staring like Sam was cake, a good game of pool, or even the god damned car. Like Dean hadn't looked since he was fourteen and Sam was ten, like he was completely Dean's.

Sam bit back a groan and felt something in him snap like dry wood. Dean pushed him down into the soft grass and Sam pulled him down after, hooking his feet under Dean's knees. Dean sprawled down over him and it should have hurt, should have knocked the breath out of him, but he didn't even care. He just wound his legs around Dean's thighs and tugged him close.

"So, it's okay with you, huh?" Dean asked when the kiss broke. He was grinning, then teasing his tongue over Sam's earlobe. Grinding his hips against Sam's.

"Fuck you," Sam panted and closed his eyes, squeezing them hard and tight. But he was smiling back at Dean. Light and happy and okay.

He didn't know when it had started to be okay, but he remembered the exact second he stopped caring. When Dean got his jeans half way down, trapping Sam around the knees, and laughed at him, wild and wicked. "Guess you're mine now," he said and grabbed Sam's wrists, pinning them over his head. And that was it, that was all it took.

Sam even forgot to feel embarrassed for coming in his boxers. Forgot everything but the look on Dean's face, calmer and happier than he'd ever seen him since he was so little. "You're mine," Dean whispered, all hoarse and fucked out and there with him.

Sam just nodded his head and closed his eyes while Dean climbed down him and peeled the sticky boxers down inch by inch to lick at his stomach. He closed his eyes, hazy and lost, just feeling Dean for a long time.

It was a sound that finally pulled him out of it. Not loud, but it seemed to vibrate through Sam's head across some nameless distance. Sam could hear the fairy woman howling. White hot and horrible. He winced when he heard it and tried to pull out of Dean's octopus armed embrace but Dean just clung to him. "Sammy," Dean whispered, and his eyes seemed black in the dulling light. "Sam, Sammy. Stay."

"Dean, something--" Sam began, but Dean pressed his mouth over Sam's and pushed him down, silencing him, making him whimper for breath, for need.

He didn't understand, couldn't think of anything but the scent of Dean, clean sweat and green grass. Couldn't think until he could smell smoke and the crisp stink of burning vegetation, very close now. Very close. He could feel the heat of it blistering.

"Dean," he gasped and kicked at Dean's thigh. Sam looked up and he saw... He looked up, over Dean's shoulder, up and up and saw him hovering over them. The look on his face, old milk, gray and sallow. "Dad," he whispered. "No."

Dean didn't seem to hear him, Dean didn't seem to hear anything that wasn't the push of Sam's body and the thrum of Sam's blood.

"He's under a glamor," Dad said, sharp and bitten off. "Some kind of Fae delusion. God knows what it's making him see or think, but it'll break soon. I burned the fairy." It was a shock to hear him speak, like it made this real. Sam flinched and shuddered like he was freezing and Dean responded to that, stroking his shoulder soothingly, pressing a kiss to his cheek that Sam couldn't duck.

If anything, Dad's face got older and then he moved fast. Sam didn't really see what he did, but the next thing he knew Dean had gone heavy and limp, pressed unconscious against him. Sam pushed him off and let himself be grabbed by the arm, yanked to his feet hard enough to feel his joints quake. He could smell smoke, still, and burning vegetation. The fairy. Burning.

"Like I said. He's under a glamor. Like he's drugged, not responsible for what he's doing," Dad repeated softly, not looking at Sam's face. "We'll have to carry him out of here."

Sam shuddered, and then realized that he was cold. That he was bare-ass naked and cold without the solid heat of Dean pressing over him. Why hadn't he known the night was cold?

Dad threw a bundle of clothes at him and Sam put them on fast, not just because... because the fire, that was real. The circle of toadstools were smoldering, spitting smoke even if they were too damp to really flame up.

They carried Dean to the car and Sam winced under the burden, or maybe under Dad's glare. When Sam tried to get into the backseat, next to Dean, Dad shoved him forward. Not hard, but enough to send Sam stumbling so that he had to catch himself.

"Not with him," Dad said. "He's under a glamor, but you-- you're not, are you, Sam? You knew exactly what you were doing." It wasn't a question. It wasn't a lie. "You know." Sam knew too much.

"No," Sam protested softly, staring back at Dean sprawled out on the seat. "It wasn't like that, I-- no, it wasn't--"

"Do you honestly believe that, Sam?" Dad replied. He sounded tired, old. "You should know better. Just get in the car."

Sam bit his lip and climbed in the front without a word. Dad didn't say anything either, just started the car, his mouth set in a narrow, grim line.

"You won't give me any reason to tell your brother about this," Dad told him when they finally pulled into the motel lot. "He's been through too much shit, Sam. You won't put this burden on him."

"Tell him?" Sam repeated numbly. He stared at his hands. There were bruises on his wrists in the shape of Dean's fingertips, where he'd been held down. "He was right there!"

"It was a glamor. Lore's uncertain about whether he'll remember a thing." Dad looked Sam in the eye, steady as anything when Sam's head jerked up. "Now you give me your word, Samuel Winchester. Your brother doesn't deserve this. For once in his life he deserves not to carry something."

Sam stifled the protest on his tongue. "Your word, Sam," Dad said, relentless and steady. "I don't know what's wrong with you, what made you think this was okay, but-- I don't need to know. You won't hurt your brother with this. Or so help me--"

"I swear," Sam said quickly, cutting off the words. He didn't want to know what his Dad was going to do. If his Dad was right it was all his fault, wasn't it? Everything that had happened, every way that Sam knew better. Dean was under a glamor but Sam had let himself believe...

Stupid. The fairy woman had told him what she was doing, what she was... giving. Jesus. Bad enough he'd been stupid, but he'd hurt Dean with it. Now he had to remember the look in Dean's eyes, how burningly happy he'd been and how easy he'd smiled. Dean was never going to look like that again, not at Sam.

The next morning Dean moaned and groaned about the lump on his head and... and he forgot. Like whatever had happened last night had melted away with the moonlight, like a fairy gift.

Sam remembered. Couldn't seem to get the smell of Dean off his skin, even when the bruises faded. That probably meant Dad was right. Not a glamor. His fault. It was his fault and now he had to live with it.

So that was what it was like to be really alone.

 

In the next town Dad took Dean with him pretty much every hunt. "Sam'll be fine on his own for once," he said the one time Dean sort of asked about it. "You were taking care of yourself and him at that age, Dean-o."

Sam almost snapped out the response, almost demanded to know if his Dad really remembered how well Dean had done. But he couldn't, not with Dean in the room. Instead he let his Dad stare him down and bit his tongue.

Sam knew that wasn't why, but Dad didn't bother to say anything else about it to him. He had Sam's promise, he didn't have to bring it up again. Everything had been said.

It wasn't that bad, Sam told himself. He went to school on time every morning, got to finish all his homework and do extracurriculars as long as they didn't run any later than the late bus home since there was no one to give him a ride to the bad part of town. It was kind of like normal. Lots of kids had parents who worked late, lots of kids spent time alone.

Not too many of them jerked off with the water running so that no one could hear them say their brother's name when they came. But if Sam tried hard enough he could hide the fact he was a freak just as easy as he'd learned to hide he was poorer than spit and came from a family that hadn't spent more than a semester in one place since he was six months old.

He met Mike Randall at the basketball court on a Saturday afternoon when Dad and Dean were gone again and he couldn't take the tattered, empty efficiency. Mike was old-- not too old, but older than Dean and that was the first thing Sam noticed about him. Then it was the worn jeans that clung to his hipbones and that he had bright green eyes.

He grinned at Sam first thing. "Wanna try a little one on one, kid?" he asked. Sam grinned back and agreed. It was surprisingly fun. Rough, sweaty and careless and Sam was getting more than tall enough to make it count.

Somehow it wasn't a surprise when the next afternoon Mike was on the court again. Even less of a surprise that he touched Sam a little more than necessary, a little more than the guys at school during a pick up game.

He'd never get to with Dean, fuck, he knew it was wrong to even want to with Dean, to dream, but maybe he could have something. So he smiled at Mike and looked at him a little too long, long enough that there was no way anyone could miss where he was looking.

It started easy, not doing much more than he had that night. With Dean. More rubbing bodies together, less kissing, but near enough. It started out on Saturdays and ended up being every time Sam wasn't at school, that Mike wasn't working.

Even a few times when Dean was around. Sam barely even felt regret for the disappointed look in Dean's eyes when Sam blew off movies or pool with him. By the third time that Sam said, "I'm sorry, Dean, I've got a thing," Dean started to get this weird, smashed look, like he used to when they were kids and Dad kept leaving him alone with Sam all the time.

It made Sam want to... something. He didn't know, but he'd promised, he'd sworn so he didn't say a word, just kept his hands wound up tight in his pockets. There was nothing he could say, not when Dad was watching Sam too and when he looked so satisfied when Sam walked out the door. Sam could feel his eyes, hard and steady on his back, every time.

The game of Dean reaching, Sam jerking back and Dad looking on and making sure he damn well would every time came to a head on a warm April night.

Dean and Dad were both at home cleaning their guns and talking target practice. Sam watched them from his perch on the kitchen table, his gaze skidding from the textbook he'd already pretty much memorized to them. Just shooting the shit, comfortable. They'd gotten really comfortable together since Dad had started taking Dean along as a matter of course, like partners, like they could finish each others sentences. It was weird, really weird, watching that. Just watching, because if he got too close Dean would grab at him and smile, but Dad would stare like Sam was-- no.

Sam tried to focus on his textbook instead. Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson died in poverty in Virginia. Right, okay. It was hard to focus when Dean started laughing at something Dad said, free and clear. He'd only ever laughed like that before when Sam--

Sam couldn't even finish the thought. He didn't know what was wrong with him, just that Dad was right, Dad was really right. He was a headcase, sick. That, of course, had to be the second when Dean turned up from his gun and looked right at him. Dean was smiling, all sunburn and spreading freckles, holding his gun like it was the most easy and natural thing in the world.

"Hey, Sammy!" he called. Teasing, like he was just Sam's big brother and they still hung out all the time and made fun of the X-Files together after school. Like nothing bad had ever happened. "You're always way over there. How come you're no fun anymore?"

It was just Dean being Dean. Nothing to worry about. Sam even smiled back, ready to answer, to come over there and throw a pillow at Dean's head, or whatever. Dad answered for him, though.

"Your brother has school work, Dean," he said coolly. "That's what's important to him now."

Dean might have said something back, but Sam didn't know it. Sam slammed the textbook closed and walked out the door and if anyone called after him he didn't hear it.

Mike was waiting for him on the basketball court, same as always. Dribbling the ball and humming loud and off key. "Hey, Winchester!" he called as soon as he saw Sam. He dropped the ball and smiled, like no one had told him Sam was a giant freak. A monster.

For some reason that was enough. That was-- it was a big world and there was more than Sam and Dean in it. Sam barely gave it any thought before he was pushing Mike against the long black pole nailing the hoop into the concrete court and kissing him.

Mike laughed into the kiss, but it was a nice laugh. "Let me take you home?" he asked and Sam found himself nodding. It was a big world, huge, and there was no rule that said Sam couldn't have this.

Mike's place was ridiculously small, made to look even smaller by the piles of dusty records and dustier books stacked up in every corner and on every surface. Now that he was finally there, Sam found it way too easy to look at every corner and check out every dust mote rather than watching his host.

Sam picked through the books restlessly, pulling one up and turning it over to read the back, then putting it down again. Mike just leaned back and settled into one of the few chairs without a pile on it and watched Sam twitch with a faint, easy smile until Sam finished poking and finally got up the guts and looked at him.

"Come here," Mike said the moment their eyes met and beckoned with a finger. Sam grinned and rolled his eyes, but his shoulders relaxed before he even realized they'd gone tight and he went, one step and two, then another until he was practically standing between Mike's spread legs. Two big hands slid around the curve of his hips and pulled him in closer. Not hard, but steady. Mike's eyes were green and he looked like he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

When Sam leaned down to kiss him his mouth tasted of Sam Adams and ketchup or whatever he'd had for lunch. His mouth was always wetter than Dean's, sloppier than any girl Sam had ever kissed.

"Can I take you to bed?" Mike asked, like it was hardly a question at all. Like Sam was an easy answer, like a girl who wore tight little tops to school and leaned down to show everyone her breasts until they whispered about her.

Sam nodded a yes anyway. He followed Mike, two paces behind, until they were in a narrow bedroom dominated by an unmade bed.

Mike's sheets were musty, like he needed to do laundry, but not nasty, nowhere near the worst sheets Sam had ever lain on.

"Take off your clothes," Mike said, and there was something new in his tone, not mean, but curious, like was wondering something about Sam. "Let me see what you've got." It shouldn't have been weird, getting naked was why they were here, right? But something about the tone made Sam's stomach twitch, anticipating... he didn't know. Made the blood rush down to his groin, hot and hopeful.

Mike sat and waited on the edge of the bed with a knowing, appraising smile that Sam kept catching out of the corner of his eye. He didn't say anything else, just watched while Sam took off his clothes. Sam's hands shook a little and he could feel heat, a stupid blush spreading down his skin. He didn't realize he was biting his lower lip until he could taste blood, metallic-sharp on his tongue. Didn't realize how bad he was shaking until his hands fumbled when he was pulling his boxers over his ankles.

"It's okay," Mike told him, even his smile softer now. A gentling tone in his voice. "You're doing great. Come here."

It sounded stupid, how gentle Mike was, how unexpectedly nice. Like reassuring a virgin, like a pedophile coaxing a kid with candy. Which Sam wasn't, neither of those. He wanted to protest, but he didn't know the words, wasn't sure he'd have said them if he could. His dick bobbed and twitched up, like it could feel Mike's gaze.

"Come here, Sam," Mike repeated, harder this time. Sharp as a knife right off the whetstone.

Sam didn't say a word, he just walked over, naked and flushed, cock pressed up against his belly even though nothing had touched it, just Mike's stare. Sam pushed his hands against it, not quite touching, just covering, but when he came close enough to reach Mike took both hands and pulled them down. Held onto them and tugged Sam to him until Mike's mouth was level with Sam's ear.

"That really gets your dick hard, doesn't it?" Mike whispered. "Being told what to do." Filthy-soft and wet voice. He released the fingers of Sam's left hand, but Sam didn't move them from where Mike had pressed him down. Mike's hands slid over Sam's hip, light and steady. Sam whimpered and arched up.

Sam shuddered and shook his head. "What'd you mean?" he whispered. His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears, pitched strange and high. Mike's hands felt like they were everywhere, one still stroking his hip, the other gripping his right wrist, steady-hard.

"You'll see," Mike promised. "You don't have to worry about anything, Sam. All you have to do is what I tell you."

"I--" Sam began. His teeth were chattering and hips thrust forward, expecting contact with air and catching flesh instead. Mike's hands were there now, just the press of palm along the length of Sam's cock, holding on there.

"Shh... don't say anything. Unless you want me to stop. Do you want me to stop?"

Sam could almost feel his blood rushing everywhere under the surface of his oversensitive skin. Feel Mike, his hand and body, hard and rough. He whimpered. Did he want Mike to-- he shook his head. Mike laughed against him, a low belly laugh that Sam could feel rumbling. "Didn't think so, kiddo."

"I'm not really a kid," Sam whispered when he made himself stop panting. "The first girl I slept with tied me up. With her jump rope." He winced as soon as the words came out of his mouth, because he knew he sounded like a kid thing no matter what he said. Pathetic.

Mike just smiled and pressed down on Sam's wrist, holding him steady and still where his body was trying to quiver. "I know. We wouldn't be doing this if you were really a kid. But what did we say about talking?"

Sam blinked and closed his mouth, still feeling the flush, half confused. This wasn't like Alice. He hadn't even-- it wasn't like anything. But Mike smirked at him like he knew exactly what Sam wanted better than Sam ever could. "I don't have any jump rope, but we'll work something out."

Sam's cock twitched like it didn't even belong to him. He could feel the sticky wetness of precome staining his belly. He closed his eyes. Dean had said, after Alice, Dean had said, 'you're growing up hardcore. You're awesome.' He didn't think Dean would say that now.

He didn't open his eyes again, until he felt the silky texture of nylon against his skin. Mike was holding something black and thin, dangling it over Sam's wrists. "I promise, these will feel better than a jump rope."

Sam nodded slowly, eyes caught, watching while Mike tied knots around his wrists. Nothing he couldn't have wiggled his way out of but Dad would kick his ass for being like this, vulnerable like this. For being this -- but it didn't matter. Dad was never going to forgive him anyway. And Dean-- he wondered if Dean would know, would get it, or if he'd hate him for this.

Sam looked up into Mike's face and told himself this had nothing to do with Dean at all. 'Liar, liar', his brain screamed, but he ignored it. Ignored everything but the body rush when he was held down and covered up and there was a rough voice in his ears whispering, "Spread your legs, there's a good kid. You want this so bad you're practically mewling."

He was, but he didn't care. Weird sounds, nothing like himself. This was nothing like himself.

He spread his legs and let them get pulled over Mike's thighs, let it all open up. It hurt, but not much, more strange than painful, so lube slick and sticky, sweat plastering Sam's cheek and nose where they pressed down against the pillow. He didn't remember when he'd turned his face away, when he closed his eyes.

He had, but he didn't care. "Thank you," he told Mike afterwards, but he pushed himself free when Mike tried to hold him, tried to keep him close. "That was educational. But I have to go."

"Sam!" Mike called after him.

"I'll see you later," Sam yelled over his shoulder and fled.

 

It was so late afterwards, past midnight, and cold outside. Sam shivered with that, body clammy with drying sweat. By the time he got home he was aching, dripping and still slick between his legs. Should have taken Mike's offer of a shower.

Everything felt weird, like he was opened up, peeling his skin and letting his layers show. All Sam wanted was to sleep, cocoon under layers of sheets and blankets where there'd used to be skin until it grew back.

Dean was waiting for him on the edge of his bed. Curled up and awake, eyes green and bright in the dim light. Dean blinked and his nose wrinkled up when he saw Sam, like he could smell the sex on him. He confirmed it when he spoke, "Getting some, Sammy?" he muttered and rubbed his eyes. "You should have just said and I wouldn't have had to worry when you ran out like that."

Sam just shrugged. He hesitated at the edge of the bed. If he winced when he sat down, Dean would notice. Maybe. The old Dean from before this town would definitely have noticed. "It's none of your business," Sam settled for saying. He leaned back on his heels and didn't sit.

"Dude, I'm your brother. You getting laid is definitely my business," Dean said. He grinned and sniffed at Sam, like he could smell sex and chum on the water. "Laid a lot, huh? What's she look like? Bet she's hot."

Sam bit the soft flesh inside his cheek to steady himself. He rolled his eyes. "Dude, normal brothers don't get all into each other's sex lives, Dean." He was mildly astonished when the words came out steady, deadpan. Not like someone who knew what it was like to have Dean's hands all over him, sex and all.

Dean just scoffed, brushing it aside with a sweep of his hand. "Normal brothers are losers. Come on, spill. It feels like we haven't-- I mean, come on, we never talk anymore."

Sam couldn't help the bubble of laughter. "You wanna talk, Dean? Please."

Dean actually managed to pull off an offended look amazingly well. "You know I'd listen." Then he grinned, spoiling it. "Especially if you share the cup size. Come on, were they big ones?"

The laughter spilled over, louder than Sam had expected. Like Dean's joke was actually funny, rather than it being Sam's crazy hysteria. He wondered what Dean would say if he told him the truth. He'd only promised his Dad he wouldn't tell about that night, about his own freakishness where it involved Dean. He wondered if Dean would look disgusted, if Dean would look at him like their father did now.

The impulse was absolutely irresistible. He found himself talking, almost before he realized it. Close and mean, smiling thinly. "Yes, Dean. He had a really big dick. He fucked me real good."

It was almost worth it to see the way Dean's freckles stood out, like a sea of dots under his pale skin. The way he got whiter once he realized what Sam had said. Dean didn't say anything, so Sam took it as his cue to keep going.

"He tied me up too," he said, offering up his wrists as evidence, almost shoving them in Dean's face. The marks weren't bad at all, nothing like the scratches left by Alice Green's jump rope, but they were visible. "How hard core is that, huh?"

Dean's mouth worked, but it took a second for words to come out. "Who is this guy?" he finally asked softly. He eyes were on Sam's wrists, but he didn't reach out to touch. Just stared.

Sam laughed at him, like his stomach wasn't hurting. He wondered what it would be like to have Dean hate him like Dad did. If he was really going to find that out now, or if it would be okay as long as the full depth of Sam's sickness didn't get out. Maybe Dean hated all sex with guys unless he was under a spell. It didn't seem like-- but he could. After everything, it made a weird, sick sense.

"Does it bug you that it's a guy? Are you a homophobe or what, Dean?" The words came out before Sam had a chance to really think, but he couldn't have made them more pointed.

"No!" Dean blurted, startled into staring up at him like he was crazy. "Jesus, Sammy, what do you think I am?"

"You sound angry," Sam said. If he'd been loud before, now his voice came out too soft. He hated that, it wasn't what he wanted to sound like. "You sure you're not grossed out? Maybe you want to watch?" More force now, that way the words came out hissed, bitter as bile.

It was almost worth it for the look on Dean's face. Blank eyed, breathing too hard. Red spreading across his cheeks. "Sam!" he said, pinched and bitten off.

Sam closed his eyes. Opened them again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." Liar.

There was a long pause. Long enough that Sam could almost see the gears turning in Dean's head, the instant when Dean decided to just erase the last few seconds from his head. Like everything else got erased, probably.

"Oh yeah? Well--" Dean paused, like he was hunting for words. "You had sex with some guy and you sound miserable. You think that's okay?"

"Having sex with a guy?" Sam whispered. Still soft. He wanted to stop it, didn't want to play for Dean's pity.

Dean shook his head. "No. Jesus. You sound miserable, Sam. That's what's not-- I know, believe me I know, that sometimes you feel like you have to do things and I--" Sam watched, almost fascinated, as Dean's face got redder, and then whiter in blotches. "Maybe you feel like you have to--"

Suddenly it was just too much. He wasn't exactly sure where this was going and maybe he didn't want to know. "No! Come on, stop it. It wasn't-- I wanted to Dean."

"Just tell me who this guy is, damnit!" Dean howled. Then, without warning, he slammed his fist into the pillow so hard it made Sam jump back until the wall was behind him, solid enough to hold him up. He didn't realize how hard he was breathing until he had to try to calm himself down, slow in and out breaths.

Dad's voice rang in his head, ice hard. Don't you dare put this on your brother, Sam. Don't you dare. Don't you dare. "It wasn't like that," Sam said out loud. "I know what you're thinking about and you don't have to." Dean was red faced, already embarrassed about his own anger. Or whatever.

"It's not a big deal if you're okay," Dean finally said, the words directed mostly at his own shoes. "I need you to be okay, Sam."

Sam nodded, but didn't move from his place by the wall. "I'm okay," he said. "I'm fine."

He didn't know what he expected, but it wasn't for Dean to get up off the bed and come to him. They weren't-- they weren't touchy-feely, not usually, not anymore. Dean might clap him on the back or the shoulder when he was pleased or proud or sit close when they were watching tv, Dad might position him to correct his form during training, but they didn't just touch to touch. Almost never. Other then the times that Dean slid over and did this.

Dean touched him now, not casually, a hand on his hand. "Sam," he said. Just Sam's name, but his eyes were steady. "You're not alone, you know that, right? No matter what."

Sam bit the inside of his mouth. He might have said something, he might have said anything. He'd never know, because that was when Dad's voice cut through whatever he was thinking about, loud and querulous, telling them to cut the racket and Dean to go to bed in his own room.

Sam flinched and didn't look at Dean. Didn't watch him roll his eyes and mutter, "We'll talk more in the morning." It didn't even matter.

It was weird, like a demon possessed him weird, what he did next. Leaning over, grabbing Dean by the shoulder. Hissing in his ear. "You can if you want to. Watch. Me and him. Me and anyone. I'd let you."

He wasn't surprised when Dean almost ran out of the room. Sam waited for a few seconds until he heard the door thump close before he settled down on the bed, gingerly, careful of his sore ass. Then he just sat, waiting, staring at the wall until he was tired enough to fall asleep.

He was so tired he almost didn't wake up at all when the mattress creaked and dipped in the middle of the night. He just whimpered and pushed his face into his pillow, fisted his blanket closer. Later he wasn't even sure if he dreamed about it, about Dean, settled in close, just out of skin contact. Just watching him sleep.

Dean whispering to him, "It's not that I just want to watch, Sammy. That ain't all."

When he woke up his bed was cold and empty, there was a note from Dean pinned to the refrigerator with an envelope of cash underneath. 'Sorry, Dad says we had to run. Poltergeist in Wilmington. Call you when we get there.'

It was definitely a dream.

 

They were gone for a week, then a week bled into ten days. Dean called, but late enough that Sam slept through it. It was better than nothing, it was still Dean, his voice scratchy-tired on the answering machine.

At school the PSAT scores came in and they said Sam's name on the morning announcements, said it was a list of the other kids that made the National Merit Scholarship list. They all got called in to the Principal's office and the man smiled at them, shook their hands one by one and grinned outright at Sam, white teeth splitting his dark beard.

"Congratulations, Mr. Winchester," he said. "We'll be expecting great things from you."

Sam smiled along. He wasn't even really sure why he took the exam, scrounging up the spare cash for the fee out of his food and bills money hadn't really been fun. It was half-impulse and half-curiosity and it seemed like all the other kids were doing it.

Sam was playing normal again.

Of course the other kids had prep classes and agonized about it for weeks while Sam just took the thing on a whim. The test was ridiculously easy anyway.

It was just that afterwards, Mrs. Edwards the guidance counselor, the one who'd barely looked him over after they sat down to pick classes when he first transferred in, she wouldn't stop calling him into her office to talk about colleges. Twice in that week.

She was very blonde, very earnest and templed her hands together when she talked about achievement and limitless potential. "We have a lot of bright children in this school, Sam," she said and smiled her perfect white smile at him. "But you-- you're special. Unique. A boy with your background, with your dedication to excellence!"

Sam just smiled back and rubbed the back of his neck and didn't ask what she meant about his background. "Sure, Mrs. Edwards," he said. "I'm nothing special, really." He already knew that was a lie, but she liked hearing him say it. And the more she liked him, the less closely she was going to look at things like permission slips apparently signed by his dad.

Sam hadn't completely made up his mind about college yet, but he knew how to do his research. Find out what was possible. There were things he knew he'd have to do and grades were only the beginning.

Forging financial aid forms was going to be a lot more interesting than permission slips and he'd need to know everything before he tried. Anyway, he liked looking at the brochures in her office. The shiny, smiling people in expensive sweaters lying on green lawns and holding books.

It made him wonder what it would take to fool a person like that into thinking you were one of them. He'd be willing to bet it wasn't a lot. He'd be willing to bet everything he'd learned from Rose when he was fourteen, that would do it.

Sometimes thinking about college, about being away, was all that shut the voice up in his head, the one that sounded a lot like Dad telling him not to dare, not to dare, dare put any of this on his brother.

After school, there was still Mike. And that was different. That was-- Sam could shut his eyes, put his hands behind his back to be bound and click off his brain. It was sick, it was so strange that it had to be sick, Sam had to hide in the back of the public library with a book that made him sneeze opening it to even read up on what he was doing.

The fact there were books about it at all was a relief. This is what it means when they hold you down and bind you up. This is what it means when you liked it. Sam knew it was going to end badly, especially when the ten days were up and he had another late, exhausted sounding message from Dean saying things were wrapped and they were coming home.

He could have predicted it, drawn out the mathematical certainties, like the thin, curving graphs they drew in calculus. It was all impulse and stubbornness that made him go to Mike's after school anyway.

Mike tied him up face down in his bed, like a fly in a spiderweb, too tight to wiggle and Sam pressed his face into the pillow and felt the throbbing pulse of his cock. "You have a beautiful ass," Mike whispered and he licked his way down Sam's spine, a slow, spreading expanse of tickling wetness that made Sam shiver. "Don't worry about anything. Just let it go. You don't have to worry about anything."

Sam's eyelashes fluttered, heavy and damp. He didn't make a sound when Mike's wet, thick tongue pushed around and inside him, just let out a low, long breath, gone boneless and empty. Waiting for something to fill him up.

Mike fucked harder and deeper than anything Sam had imagined. It burned going in, every time, until the burn alone was almost enough to get him off. He still felt empty when he walked out the door, sticky-slippery and loose inside. He didn't want to wash himself clean, he wanted to feel it, sticky filth and heat dripping out of him.

The Impala was waiting for him in the driveway, his Dad sitting on the hood, tight mouthed and grim faced. Sam could just about feel his spine straighten and never mind the twinge in his ass. It was a relief, how angry he felt, the rage almost as much of a body rush as the sex. It meant he was still himself, that whatever he was doing with Mike hadn't changed-- he didn't know. Anything.

Just that he wasn't weak, it didn't make him weak.

"You're following me around now?" Sam said before his dad had a chance to get a word out. "Awesome."

He could see the twitch in Dad's jaw. The impulse to move. He wondered what he'd have to say to get Dad to do more than threaten, how easy that would be without Dean here to buffer things. He wondered what was wrong with him to want to.

Sick, the voice in his head that sounded like his Dad's reminded him. Sick. Don't know what's wrong with you.

"You're my son," his real Dad said. His voice was thick, gruff and almost indecipherable. Sam never seemed to have a clue what his dad was thinking. Pissed off, that was obvious enough. "My seventeen year old son. You think what happened with your brother wasn't enough and I need you doing this too?"

"You're the one that said I was old enough to take care of myself," Sam spat back. He could taste the mockery. "Like Dean was old enough, right? What's the matter, sir? Did you have something else in mind?"

"That man--" Dad began.

"His name is Mike," Sam said. The fresh uprising of anger surprised him. He hadn't expected to care about Mike, not really. But he'd never had anything like this before.

"His name is scum. How old is he? You're a kid, Sam." Dad's eyes were narrow, and Sam could see his hands, big and rough. Clenched into fists. "You're my son."

"You say that a whole lot," Sam muttered. "You never act like it though." He kept his gaze straight and steady, staring at his father. They were the same height now. Sam didn't even know when that had happened.

He could hear the breath his Dad sucked in. "Get in the car, Sam," he said.

Sam smiled. He couldn't help it, didn't even really know why he was doing it. "No," he said, still smiling, bright and challenging. Showing all his teeth. "No, sir."

"Sam," his Dad hissed. He took a step closer, sharp and fast. Sam might be the same height but he was nowhere near the same strength and he knew it. Not physically, anyway. He didn't move an inch, not even when Dad was breathing into his face. "For once in your life, just do as you're told."

"Once in my life?" Sam blurted out, too fast to process it. He laughed out loud, shook his head. He didn't even care, he'd hadn't even felt the moment he stopped caring. "Whatever. You gonna bring me home and do what? You can't stop me. Not unless you fucking stay in the same town as me. And you can't do that, can you? Can't let your crazy sick kid near the son you actually love, can you? Never mind what you let happen to him."

It felt like being unglued, talking like this. Like Mike had licked him all the way open and he wasn't shut yet, he was spilling everywhere. He could barely even see Dad, all he could hear was the buzzing of blood in his head. Maybe his Dad was saying something, maybe he wasn't. Hurt. It hurt. "I hate you," he said, fumbling for something, anything that could make Dad hurt like he hurt. "I fucking hate you."

He didn't see the fist coming until it was crashing into his jaw, hard and vicious. It threw him backwards hard enough to peel the skin from his elbows where they hit the rough concrete. He lay there blinking, too surprised to move, too hurt to reach up and feel the warm liquid tricking down from his lip.

It took him a moment to realize that someone was shouting. Not at him. Not his Dad. Someone was shouting. He blinked again, trying to focus his eyes, and then realized it was Mike, come pounding downstairs.

He didn't listen, covered his ears and rocked backwards, not hearing words like, "Bastard, hit your own kid," and "Molest children", and definitely, certainly not, "My son". He didn't even try to get up, just let blood and snot drip down his face while yelling turned into fists and he could almost hear the impact of Mike's body against the ground.

"You think I'd let anyone fuck with one of my boys," his father hissed between shots. "No one, not you, not anyone."

"No," Sam said, up on his feet before he realized he was doing it, before he even thought about where he was going to get the strength and nerve. "Stop it." No thoughts, just actions and he was standing in front of his Dad, in the way of his Dad's fists, his Dad's heavy, steel-toed boots. Just holding up his hands. Vaguely, he wondered if this was how Dean felt.

"Get out of the way, Sam," his Dad growled, his eyes black and narrow. "Get in the car and let me take care of this."

"No," Sam repeated. He didn't even move to see Mike's prone body behind him. He imagined he was like Dean, solid, feet extending down into the earth. Nothing was going to move him. He was like Dean. "You first."

"He hurt you," Dad said. The look on his face... Sam had never seen that look on his Dad's face, not directed at him. But his jaw was throbbing and he was numb and loose everywhere else. He had no idea what it meant.

"No," he said. "He didn't. You did, Sir." Sam watched the words impact his Dad and didn't wonder why. It was enough when his Dad glared him down, grabbed him by the arm and pushed him into the car.

Sam didn't fight it because his Dad climbed in the driver's seat. "I never want to hear about this happening again," he said as he turned the key in the ignition. Sam gritted his teeth, wincing at the pain that brought to his jaw, but he didn't say a word back and Dad didn't push it.

At their place Dean was settled in a chair near the door, like he'd known something was going to happen. He flicked off the television the second they walked in and stood up looking from one to the other. Sam could feel his face heating up, from the throbbing broken skin on down. Then Dean's gaze shifted to Dad's visibly bruised knuckles and even Sam could hear the sharpness of his inhale.

"Come here, Sammy," Dean said and Sam shuffled over to him wordlessly, putting his back to his father. He could feel a prickle in his shoulder blades, in the vulnerable space between. He wondered what Dad was thinking, watching him go to Dean like that, wondered if Dad was going to say something, intervene.

He held his breath for it but Dad never said a word, just stood in the door way, waiting, while Sam went to Dean, while Dean inspected his jaw with deliberate care. Long skilled fingers, not gentle but not rough either. Sam shivered under his touch.

"No big deal, just gonna be a nasty bruise," Dean said softly, just to Sam. If he was going to look at Dad, say something to Dad, he'd have done it by now. "I'll ice this for you."

Sam opened his mouth to say something, anything, but then the door slammed shut, silencing him. A few seconds later he could hear the growl of the Impala, thick and heavy, pressing him in. "He caught me with a guy," Sam said shortly, before Dean even had a chance to ask. "He caught me with a guy and that's it, that's what happened. I am not going to talk about it."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, like you ever fucking talk about anything to do with you, dude. Ain't the Winchester Way." Dean kept talking while he guided Sam into the tiny kitchenette and sat him down on a stool. Not about anything, just running over the last hunt, how they could have used Sam's research and his steady knife hand. Then just knife stuff in general, the one that Dean had seen in the shop that was going to take a shit ton of pool hustling to afford and--

"You don't have to do this," Sam said suddenly. The words came out muffled by the bag of frozen vegetables Dean was pressing against his jaw in lieu of ice. "You don't have to be nice about this."

"Shut up," Dean said. He probably thought he was being mild, but it came out strained around the edges. "You're my brother, Sammy. I can be nice if I damn well please."

Brother. Right. His brother and only someone really sick, really... Sam looked down, staring at his hands. There was a ring of familiar marks on his wrists, from Mike's ropes. Mike... that was probably over now. No way he'd ever want to see Sam again after what Dad had done to him.

Without any warning Dean's fingers curled around his wrists, light fingertips grazing the marks. Soft and steady, back and forth. Careful, but not gentle. Sam felt the touch like fingernails running lightly up and down his spine. Curling all around him.

He blinked dust and wetness out of his eyes and looked up at Dean. His brother's gaze was intent and steady. Fixed on his wrists, like he remembered when those marks were fingerprints, when they were Dean's fingerprints. "You're my brother," Dean said. "You're mine, Sam."

Mine. Sam could almost taste the word. Could almost see moonlight and promise in Dean's eyes. The blood rush hit him again, flaming his cheeks, his hands, between his thighs. He hadn't thought he could want it again after tonight, after everything. "If you say so," he whispered.

"I do," Dean said firmly. Then he nodded, as if he'd figured something out. He looked up at Sam, smirked and flicked his chin lightly. "I totally say so. I am a fucking awesome brother. We're going to figure this out. Okay?"

Sam was the one who looked away. He could feel the heat leaching out of his skin, leaving him chilly from the ice and aching. He smiled anyway, as good a smile as he could pull up. "You mean you're awesome at being an asshole," he said.

Dean laughed easily. "Sure, sure, you tell yourself that. Don't worry about Dad, okay? I'll talk to him. We'll figure it out."

Sam nodded. Don't you put this on your brother, Dad's voice whispered to him. Don't you dare. Don't you dare. 'I'm not,' he told it, and it shut up. "I'm really tired," he said out loud. "I'm going to go to bed."

Dean nodded and didn't keep him, didn't follow him. Sam piled up layers of blankets high, like it was freezing, and curled in on himself underneath them. He didn't sleep. He was wide awake when it got late, when it got darker and darker.

When the front door finally squealed open. He made himself not move when Dad's heavy boots stopped outside his bedroom door. He could almost hear how loud Dad was breathing when the door finally opened and he stepped inside. Quiet steps, especially with those boots, like he was trying not to wake Sam.

Sam wondered why not, forced himself not to tense up in expectation of a blow. Forced himself to relax and let his breaths come in and out, easy, easy like he was still sound asleep. It was harder than he ever thought it could be, especially when he realized that his father, his Dad, was crying. Not loud, he sounded too much like Dean in that silent, half bitten back misery.

"Jesus, Sam," Dad whispered, but not like he had a clue Sam was even listening. "Don't do this to me, don't do this to your brother, he's been through enough. Just be okay for once. Please."

They lay like that for a long, long time. Dad sitting there and crying quietly and Sam making himself breathe like he was asleep, like he was a long, long way from here. Finally pretending was enough and he did drift off. By the time he woke up again it was full daylight and he was alone in his room.

His pillow was wet and he felt sore and torn down everywhere, but he went to take a shower, to scrub what was left of Mike off of him and then down the hall to breakfast. Dean had made eggs, soft and easy to chew even with a sore jaw and Dad didn't say a word to Sam, just talked to Dean like he wasn't even there.

Dean asked Sam if he wanted to go out for burgers after school and Sam looked down at his plate and said he had to study. Dean didn't ask again.

They stayed put, both of them, in town until the air got summer warm and Sam finished his finals. Dad spent most of the time under the hood of the Impala with Dean or bent over books, newspapers and old microfilm, but he stayed. Dean spent the time, the few times they were alone in one room, watching like he had no idea who Sam even was anymore. The worst part was when he tried to talk about it, like there was something he could say to glue things back together. Mostly Sam tried not to be alone in the same room.

When summer vacation started they moved on. Sam packed his PSAT scores and a bundle of recommendation letters from teachers in the very bottom of his duffel bag. They fit very well tucked into a shiny folder with a brochure from Stanford with two smiling guys sitting on the grass. One of them held a book and the other was a dishwater blond with green eyes. That one was Sam's favorite.

 

For Sam's senior year they settled in central New York. This crumbling, empty eyed old factory town full of abandoned warehouses that still had their neo-classical frontages from the 1880's and windows full of broken glass and enough work to keep Dad and Dean busy really close to home.

Sam had a fake ID and made friends with a girl whose older sister Kate tended bar in the only goth and fetish club in the city and didn't get to fussy about Id's. He was a senior, he could have been eighteen, and if he wasn't drinking that was good enough for Kate.

She was a tall girl with brown eyes and hair dyed an unnatural shade of red. The first time Sam found his way into her club she grinned, saluted him and asked, "So, you a top or a bottom?"

Sam could feel himself turning the same color as her hair and stammered something out about not being sure yet. He thought that was what he said, anyway.

She just laughed a little harder and patted him on the shoulder. "I get it. You're new at this. Well, do you like girls?"

If it was possible Sam got even redder. "Um," he muttered. "Uh. I mean, you can't really. With a girl. Bottom. Oh-- wait--" Because he remembered Rose from all those years ago and Alice Green and he ended up just shaking his head.

"So that's a yes, you like girls?" Kate asked.

"Y-yes. I like girls." Sam took a deep breath and tried to think like Dean for once and not be so freaking lame. "Do you like me?"

"Of course I do, Sam," she said and grinned. Then she kissed him. She tasted of lipstick and salty peanuts. Different, definitely different from Mike. From... other people too. Sam sighed into her mouth and pushed her back against the bar until she was flush against the wood, licking and tasting her, breathing her in like fresh air.

He stopped when they were both panting and wet, lips sore. She was still smiling and traced the edges of his reddened mouth with a fingertip. "I don't think you're totally a bottom," she said and winked at him.

Sam laughed back. It felt different, but-- good. Free in its own way. "Yeah, I guess not."

Kate was the one who gave him the idea. She had a tattoo, small gold letters on the underside of her breast. JE, just two letters, like initials. Sam brushed his tongue over them when he pushed her bra out of the way, imagining what the ink must have tasted like.

"Who is JE? That's a person, right?" he asked afterwards, when she was loose and limp against him while he idly traced his fingers over her soft, indented nipple.

She shrugged. "My Master," she said, like it was no big deal. "Just to remind me of who I belong to."

Sam frowned and shook his head. "Your master?" he repeated slowly, chewing over the word. "Does he know you do stuff like this?"

Kate rolled her eyes. "He doesn't care. He's not-- he's just the Master I want. He-- it isn't anything." There was something blank and gray in her expression that made Sam shut right up without asking anything else.

"Okay," he said instead and kissed her until she was smiling again.

At their current place Dean was out in the driveway washing the Impala and humming a tune older than he was under his breath. He smiled when he saw Sam coming, bright eyed in the full sunlight, like they were still getting along. And as easy as that, Sam smiled back and they really were. They really were Sam and Dean and getting along.

"Hey," Dean said. "You look happy for once. Get laid?" The question was probably mostly reflex, Sam could see Dean want to take it back a second later, take his smile and his being glad to see Sam. See him remember Mike. Or whatever.

"Yeah," Sam said, quickly, before Dean had a chance to get a word out. Just this once, Dean could bet glad to see him, just this one time. "Her name is Kate."

Dean's grin was firmly pasted back on between blinks of an eyelash. "Kate, huh? Cup size?"

"Asshole," Sam shot back reflexively. "You're such a pig, Dean."

"If they're only the size of an asshole, you got gypped, dude," Dean called back unrepentantly. Kept laughing too, until Sam dumped what was left of a bucket of soapy water right on his head. Then it was war.

It left them wet and breathless in the sunlight and Sam couldn't remember feeling this bubble light in so many years. Not the way he did with Dean pressed against him, sweaty and soap slick, blinking wet eyelashes and laughing his idiot head off.

He never talked to Kate about her tattoo again, but the idea was in his head. Running in circles between books and thoughts and the way Dean smiled at him when Sam let him do it. Running in wider, crazier orbits until Sam came across a book on ritual magic and marks on skin and then everything stopped.

He knew what he was going to do.

The tattoo shop he found was grungy and covered with posters for speed metal and hardcore punk on the outside. Inside it was immaculately, spotlessly clean, with walls covered in pictures of tattoo designs pretty much from floor to ceiling.

"We can't do this if you're under eighteen. Not unless you come in with a parent," the guy behind the counter told him. He had a bland, nondescript face that looked as if it frowned more than it smiled and a bored half way annoyed expression, like it pissed him off that Sam had come in to interrupt him from the book he'd been reading.

Sam shrugged. "I'm over eighteen. Don't worry about it."

"You got any ID?" the guy asked in the same, flat bored voice. He took the license Sam handed over without a word and narrowed his eyes, inspecting it like he was looking for scratches.

Sam leaned against the counter and waited. He wasn't worried. The fake was a birthday present from Dean and that meant it was good work. Between that and all the height he'd picked up, passing for eighteen was nothing. No big deal. Besides, when the guy bent over Sam focused on the pentagrams carved into his wide, heavy looking ear spools. Nearly two inches across and carved in so deep there was no way anything evil would be wearing them. Guy probably had no idea what he had on but Sam let out a breath, weirdly reassured.

"All right, fine," the guy finally said. The words were slow and sounded grudging, but Sam just stared him down until the guy shrugged. "What kind of ink do you want?"

Sam picked his license off the table and clutched it awkwardly in his fingers before shoving it back into his wallet. "Nothing big. Just. Initials. DW. Here." He raised his shirt just a little bit to indicate the dip of his spine on his lower back, under where boxers would rest. That would be a good place, covered up. Someplace Dean had put his hands.

"Initials?" the guy rolled his eyes. "Whoever she is, you're just gonna break up with her. You know how much burning off a tat will cost?"

Sam narrowed his eyes. "You want my money or what?" he demanded.

The guy laughed, wide enough to make the skin around his eyes crinkle. "Sure," he said. "Just don't come whining back here when she don't love you anymore or when her sister ends up looking hotter."

Sam couldn't help but laugh back, but it came out bitter. The only way he could stop Dean from loving him anymore would probably be to do something stupid, like show him what he was doing. Or tell him what he'd done under the influence of a glamor that Sam hadn't even tried to stop.

The guy thrust a heavy, crinkled book into his hands and pushed it to a page half way through. "Pick out a font you like. Price is per letter and per color," he said shortly.

Sam nodded and thumbed through the book fast, just picking the third okay looking design he could see. It didn't matter, not what it looked like. Just the sense of it. "This one," he said.

"Sure, kid. Your funeral," the guy said and took the book back. An elaborate Eye of Horus tattooed on his forearm seemed to wink at Sam and Sam smiled despite himself.

He'd read up a little about what it would feel like, what it would be like, but reading it wasn't the same as lying face down on a vinyl table, feeling the sweat pooling on his belly while the man took some time to shave and wipe down the skin. Set the pattern.

Then he had to lay there while the needle poked right through the skin stretched over the dip of his spine. It felt like being burned and stung by something made of too much sunlight, stinging sharper and sharper until even his bones were vibrating.

"Hold still," the guy with the needle hissed. He paused for a second and the hum of the needle stopped while he sprayed and wiped down Sam's skin with a stinging green soap that hurt more than the needle. "I mean it, still. Or the line won't be clean."

Sam gritted his teeth. It fucking hurt, but he'd been hurt a lot worse than this. Hell, compared to that banshee with the razor claws in Alabama this was beyond cake. It hurt, it hurt, until it stopped being just pain-- and then it felt like something else.

Warm. Sam felt the soft half-surprised whimper escape his mouth more than he heard it. It didn't even sound like him. It still hurt, but he could feel the heat like a spike of adrenaline spreading through his spine.

"Oh," he hissed, word lost in a long, slow exhale.

"You all right?" The man asked sharply. "Don't you puke at my station. Hold still!" and Sam felt the crack of a palm against his ass. It didn't hurt at all, definitely not through his jeans, but the heat went deeper into his guts and he went stock still, not even realizing he'd been squirming until he stopped.

"I get it. Fucking masochists." Sam heard from somewhere above his ear. "Fucking getting off on my table. Jesus, you could at least have mentioned it before we got started."

Sam could feel the red heat of embarrassment under the flush of... the other thing. "Kate said--" he began.

"Kate," the man snorted before Sam got another word out. "Kate Headley? You could have just told me she sent you. I woulda got the picture. Now fucking. Hold. Still. Or I will beat your ass." There was a pause, followed by a low chuckle. "Not much of a threat for you though, is it kiddo?"

The tattoo needle started up again with a low, electric hum. Hum, pause, and then the stinging scrub of soap. The hum again. Sam tried breathing through it, tried to still the low, humiliating sounds that spilled out of him like fizzing water. He barely felt the pain under the buzz spreading through his guts and the harsh throb of his dick that made him just want to thrust into the table underneath him.

When it was over Sam tried to count breaths while the skin was cleaned off with careful, deliberate strokes. He could feel the sticky slickness of precome dripping on his belly under his jeans and he half wanted to die just as long as he could please, please come first.

"Oh, God," he groaned.

The man behind him laughed and smacked his ass again and that made Sam buck up and then thrust down with a squeal. "You don't get a discount for putting out afterwards," he said. "Don't even bother asking."

Sam gave a muffled and miserable half laugh of his own and scrubbed his face with his hands. "God. I don't really care." His body stuck to the vinyl of the table but he peeled himself up and forced himself up on his elbows and shuffled around so he was sitting up, facing the man. Sam still had no idea what his name was, barely knew if he was attractive or not. Just that he had a firm, steady voice and steadier hands.

The man tilted his head and looked Sam up and down with a scouring expression, eyes narrow like they were all over Sam, from the flushed, bare skin of his chest to the spreading wet spot on the front of his jeans. "Get up," he said. "You are not getting any fucking jizz on my station. I don't need to scrub that shit off when I disinfect my table."

Sam bit his lip and stumbled unsteadily to his feet. Everything felt wobbly until the guy got him by the elbow and dragged him roughly in the back room, pulling a curtain closed behind them. "Pull down your pants and spread your legs," the man said. "Then sit on that table."

Sam nodded hard and scrambled to do it. Fast enough that he had to kick his jeans off his ankles. It looked like a regular lunch table, the legs shuddered under Sam's weight like the whole thing was precarious. Anything could send it tumbling. Sam spread his legs and felt the sharp, steady gaze between them.

"Wider," the man said and smacked at Sam's thigh, hard enough to leave a bright red hand print on his skin. Sam shuddered and felt the bounce of his cock. He almost screamed when there were fingers on it, squeezing the sensitive head and dipping into the slick of precome. Spreading it around with rough, broad strokes. Almost impersonal, like he hardly noticed Sam was a human being at all.

It happened almost dizzyingly fast, a few more harsh slaps on Sam's skin, followed by rough hands on his cock and then Sam lost it, head tipped back, blinking sweat out of his eyes while he spilled all over himself.

He hardly knew he was yelling until he stopped and his throat was hoarse and he flopped back, limp and spent. The man was looking at him with intense, narrow eyed concentration.

"Who's that Dean you were yelling for?" he asked softly. "Your DW, right?"

Sam shrugged, but he knew that was as good as a yes.

The man nodded as if that was obvious. His hands were gentler now, rubbing the mess of semen into the soft skin of Sam's belly with slow, circular motions. "If you were mine," the man said, with that new and terrible gentleness. "I wouldn't have made you do this by yourself. Your Dean should have been here with you."

Sam shook his head. The words jerked him out of his languor and made him sit back up sharply. "It's not like that," he said. "Don't you dare say-- it's not even like that. It's not his fault, it's mine."

"Kid. I just meant--"

"I'm not a kid," Sam snapped. He jumped down so hard he felt the slap of his soles on the wooden floor. "Do you do this shit with kids, asshole? I'm not a kid and I don't care what you meant."

Sam fumbled for his scattered clothing, pulling it on right over his semen wet skin. He didn't even care. The man didn't say another word to him about Dean, just handed him an instruction pamphlet on aftercare. Sam took it carefully so that they didn't touch skin at all as they passed it from one person to another.

"Don't soak the skin. And do not pick at it. Read the damn directions!" the man yelled at Sam's departing back.

 

When he got home he went straight for the shower and peeled off the bandage before he washed himself as clean as he could get. When he climbed out he craned his neck. Under the red irritated skin Sam could see the thick, black letters marking him up in the mirror. DW. This person belongs to someone who doesn't really want him.

He read the aftercare instructions once and then a second time all the way through before going to Kate's to get Kate to rub whatever lotions were supposed to go into his skin. She pursed her lips, but didn't ask. Maybe because she knew damn well what DW stood for. Probably.

When she was done, Sam took a deep breath. "Could I get mail sent to your place?" he asked softly.

Kate frowned. Her brow wrinkled like she was trying to figure out why the hell Sam needed something as ridiculous as that, but she just said, "Sure. What kind of mail? Not porn shit? Cause you can just borrow mine."

Sam grinned and shook his head. "Dude, I know that, Kate. No. Like. I'm applying for schools. For colleges. I don't want-- my family—uh."

Kate laughed outright at that and Sam had to laugh along with her, because, yeah, it was insane. Unless you knew the Winchesters. Porn he could totally have, but college applications? Those had to go to his not quite girlfriend's mail box.

Kate was the one who celebrated with him when the thick envelope came from Stanford, Early Admission. Sam just held on to it so tight that he felt his fingers go white in desperation. This was it and he knew it.

He was measuring his time in months from here on out.

On the first day of the first month, Dean came to find him at Kate's and caught him out. It wasn't anything, really. One of Kate's friends, a guy named Nick who wore too much leather and thought that made him a badass. Not really Sam's thing, but he was bored, the skin on his lower back was burning. He was hungry.

His stomach twisted, gnawed at him, and when Nick asked him if he wanted to, wanted to right there, out in the alley way, Sam smiled sweet and easy, and said, "Make me. If you can."

"Fuck you, Winchester," Nick growled, and it was on. Nick was a wannabe, but he had big solid hands and gym built muscles. When he pushed it was hard enough to feel it and Sam laughed and went with it, loose and sprawling against rough brick. "Not going to laugh long," Nick promised and then there were teeth, biting through the layers of flannel and cotton Sam was wearing, marking his shoulder.

Sam just tipped his head back to expose his throat and laughed harder, hysteria and arousal swirling down his spine. Electric. Dean caught him like that, pants down around his ankles, palms flat and scraping against the brick, Nick hot and heavy dick, and wet breath on his skin, balls deep in his body.

"Hey, dickhead." Sam recognized Dean's voice, of course he did, but it felt like a fantasy hearing Dean in the middle of a fuck like this, a crazy waking sex dream. He ground his ass back on Nick's cock and then whimpered when hands pushed him forward, too damn hard into the brick. Hard on his bare skin, fuck that hurt. Hurt and made him whine for it. Whimper when Nick pulled out fast and rough like something was dragging him.

The pain drove him right over the precarious line and Sam could feel the splatter of semen on his stomach, feel how much it hurt to come. "That's my brother, you dickhead," Dean yelled. Sam shuddered and caught himself on the wall, hands scrabbling for purchase. He shuffled around, jeans and boxers still pushed down to his knees, and there Dean was, looming over Nick like one of the demonspawn they hunted.

Sam was too wrecked to even protest, to do much but blink. The look on Dean's face... the closest he'd ever seen to it was Dad. After Mike... after... "Stop it, Dean, he didn't do anything I didn't want," Sam heard himself say. His voice came out hoarse and wound up, but sounded better than he felt.

Dean didn't even look at him. "Give me one reason I shouldn't kick the shit out of you?" he hissed and Sam almost laughed despite himself. Just at Nick laying there, mouth open, legs tangled up in his leather pants and dick still out, shiny and red, bobbing in the air even though he looked scared enough to piss himself.

Sam probably looked almost as stupid. He never thought he'd feel sorry for Nick. "Leave him alone, Dean," he said. That came out better, sharper. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

That made Dean look. Dean's eyes were as flat as Sam had ever seen them, green and shiny, like a pond thick with algae. Choked off. "What's wrong with me? Remember what you did when you caught me with my pants down in an alley?"

Sam stopped laughing like someone'd flipped a switch. Like he couldn't laugh again because suddenly, he was right there in a dark, stinking alley and he was small and angry and someone... someone was hurting Dean. He gasped and closed his eyes, closed out the memory. He couldn't, could not be there. No. "This is completely different," he ground out. "Cause I'm not a kid and this is like... fuck you! Are you fucking crazy?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "Different. Cause I didn't knife the guy. Maybe I should, though." Sam and Dean both turned to look at Nick at the same moment, smooth as clockwork. He'd gotten his pants more or less back up and he was already scrambling away, mumbling words that Sam couldn't make out.

"Stay away from my brother, dickwad! Or I'll find you!" Dean called after him. "You hear me, motherfucker?" Nick stumbled, caught himself, and ran faster. Sam pressed his palm to his forehead.

"I hate you," he told Dean, smooth and serious and completely full of shit. "I was getting laid."

Dean just rolled his eyes. "Well, it's not like you didn't get to come," he said, looking pointedly at Sam's white-streaked thighs. "Besides, he was an asshole. You deserve something better than that."

"Right. You know fuck all about what I deserve. Or want," Sam snapped.

Dean shrugged and gave a small, rueful smile. His voice was low and steady, the same voice he used to comfort Sam when he had a nightmare. "I have a pretty good idea, Sammy," he said, so gentle it ached way more than Sam's ass or his bruises ever could. "What you want and what you deserve. That guy ain't it, okay?"

Sam laughed, but this time it really wasn't funny. "You have no clue, okay?" He pulled up his pants, wincing when they rubbed against bruised, wet flesh. Then he walked away, stiff and with as much dignity as anyone as stained and messed up as he was could have. Dean followed him from two steps behind the whole way home, warm and weirdly reassuring, but neither of them said anything. It should have been horrible, but somehow Sam didn't mind having him there at all.

 

On the last month, Dad was gone on one of his first solo gigs since Sam could remember-- since he'd stopped leaving Sam and Dean alone together-- when Dean brought home Metallica tickets. "Lame," Sam said and flicked his gaze away from where they lay in Dean's palm. "Go with some of your loser friends. If you have any."

Dean rolled his eyes and caught him by the back of the neck long enough to offer an inescapable noogie. Sam kicked out at him but Dean's hands were warm and heavy and he didn't fight especially hard. "I'm going with my loser brother," Dean whispered into his ear. "I have one, right?"

"Fuck you," Sam said, but he grinned full out at Dean and Dean grinned back and left his hands where they were, warm and rubbing gently against Sam's skin. That was the best day of the year, the best day in years.

Right up until they stumbled home afterwards, drunk on cheap beer and too much moshing. Sam kept bumping into Dean's side, could smell the cool, drying sweat on Dean's skin. Dean kept smiling at him, kept touching, free and easy, and somehow it was okay. Drunk and painless. Sam followed Dean into his bed, but -- it wasn't anything, he was too drunk to even think about anything.

It felt like being brand new, innocent, like they were little kids or cats from one litter, and Dean came to him so easily, tangled him up close and wrapped both arms around his shoulders. "Sammy," he whispered, warm and grumbly as he pressed his cheek against Sam's and stayed there.

Sam fell asleep happy. He woke up with bright light in his eyes, a dry mouth and a roiling stomach, all to go along with an erection that was probably poking into Dean's hip. He woke up limbs all entangled with Dean. He woke up because his Dad was shining a flashlight into his eyes. Directly into them.

"Quiet," his Dad said. That was all he said. The look in his eyes said everything else, a lot more than just, don't you wake your brother up. Sam pushed himself out of Dean's octopus arms and tried not to wince when Dean whimpered and reached for him. When his Dad kept looking, saw Dean do that. Looking, like Sam was the biggest piece of scum he'd ever seen.

"I thought I had your word," his Dad said shortly when they were out in the hall. "I thought you were grown up enough to be worth trusting, Sam."

"I didn't do anything," Sam whispered. He didn't know whether to clutch his stomach or his head. They both felt like exploding. "It was just... we didn't. I know that Dean wouldn't-- doesn't want--"

John made a harsh, chocking noise. "You really telling me you never noticed your brother has a tendency to do what you want instead of what he wants?"

Sam shook his head. "It wasn't like that," he said. But his stomach, he hurt. He ran off into the bathroom and knelt in front of the toilet. He didn't think his Dad followed him, but when he finally stopped throwing up there was a glass of cold water resting next to him on the ground.

On the last day of the last month Sam showed the acceptance letter to his Dad while they were sitting together in the kitchen over breakfast. Dean was asleep, still snoring and would probably be hung over as fuck when he did wake up.

His father stared at it blankly. "I hadn't thought of this, but it's not a bad idea. Does your brother know about this?" he asked quietly, calmer than Sam had expected him to be.

"No," Sam said back just as quietly. "I was going to tell you first."

"Will it make you happy?"

Sam blinked. That wasn't any question he would have predicted. "Yeah," he said anyway. "I think so." He hoped so. Anything would have to be better than this.

"If you go, I don't want you coming back," his father continued on. Slow and thoughtful, like he was mulling through a plan of attack on a hunt. "It would be hard on your brother to have to deal with a lot of back and forth."

Sam didn't flinch, just stared down at his bowl of cereal. This was it then. The end. But he'd known it would be like that, just not that it would be so easy. Quiet. "I'll tell him," he whispered.

"No," John said, sharp, like an order. "I'll take care of that, don't worry about it. Let's just-- it's like ripping off a band-aid, right? We'll do it neat and clean. I assume your bags are packed already?"

"Yes, sir," Sam said. He could have fought this and he knew it. He could have yelled and woken Dean, anything. But his Dad was right. They both knew that his Dad was right. Sam was the poison in the family and Dean would be better off. He had to believe that.

"Go get them then. I'll drive you to the bus station." Dad sounded calm, steady. Maybe a little bit relieved. Sam figured he'd been worrying about this for a long time.

At the station Dad pressed a thick wallet full of bills into Sam's hands. "This should get you set up," he said. "But you call me if you need anything. I don't want you calling Dean, but you can call me. For anything, Sam."

"Yes, Sir," was all Sam said. He didn't look at his father, just put the money away and climbed onto the waiting bus. When he settled into his seat and looked out the window he expected to see the Impala driving off, his Dad long gone.

He wasn't though. He just stood there, watching, staring at the bus. He even gave Sam a half wave that made the woman across the aisle smile at him. "I remember when I saw my boy off to college," she said. "Man, I stared at that old bus right up until it pulled away. Probably embarrassed my boy something fierce."

Sam just shrugged and forced his lips into an upward curve. "I'm not embarrassed," he said, soft and quiet. "I don't mind."

Then he watched out the window until the bus pulled out of the lot. His Dad stayed where he was, receding behind a cloud of dust.

/

Stanford was... it was different. Sam had a full course load, a place to put his stuff and a weird roommate who collected paper clips. He had people around every day, people who weren't Dean or Dad, but were still the same people. But, he didn't mind, even if Professor Tallin in his medieval history class kept giving him the eye every time they passed each other and Professor Johnson who taught chemistry didn't appear to bathe, ever.

At Stanford, Sam fell in love for the first time over a cup of lousy dining hall coffee. It wasn't with Dean, because there was no moment, no time to point to say, yeah, that's when he fell in love with his own brother, whatever that might have meant. That was stupid, because Dean had been under his skin since the day he was born. This... Jess was different.

This was a hand over his and a smile, pretty and bright, that didn't hurt to look at. Sam had learned a lot of lessons, but Jess was the one who taught him how to feel without hurting himself, without laying out his guts on the table.

She took him back to her room and fucked him open with a ridiculous purple strap-on. Her hands were on his back and sliding up and down and she only asked him about the tattoo once, like she understood.

Sometimes it was still weird. She knew he was on a full ride scholarship and knew just as well what the scholarship didn't cover, the gaps the loans didn't fill. Jess had a trust set up by her grandmother that could probably buy her a residence hall with her name on it if she wanted one. Mostly it didn't matter, but there were days when they'd go to lunch together and he'd try to pay for once.

Something stupid, just a burrito from somewhere that wasn't the dining hall. Jess grabbed the burrito out of his hand and gave him a sideways glare. "Jesus, I'll get it," she said. "You can pay when you have some money, okay?"

And the logical thing to do would be to shut up, because she was right. She had money, he had pocket lint, unless he wanted to supplement it with some casual card sharking or something. It made sense. It just also made Sam feel about seven years old with his best friend's mom running away from his apartment like she might get lice from standing around too long.

It was almost worse when Jess found them a place off campus, so sickeningly out of his price range he was in a daze the whole time the realtor talked about it. It was only afterwards when Jess settled down next to him on the stoop outside that he could even say a word.

"I don't want you to always pay for everything," he said softly. He bit his lip. Did that sound macho and lame? "I just want this to be fair," he added quickly.

Jess frowned at him, but she didn't laugh, didn't do much but hesitate for a long moment before she pressed her hand over his. "It's not-- I want a place," she said. "I want a place with you in it. That's what I want to pay for, for me."

"Jess--"

"Sam," she interrupted. "This isn't forever. After school's finished you're gonna have a great job with a shit ton of money, okay? This is just what it is now."

"What if I don't?" He bit his lower lip and didn't look at her. Didn't think too hard about what she said. This is just for now. This is now. There is going to be a later after this. There is an after this.

"You will," she said, straight and sure. She caught his hand and raised it to her lips. "You're-- you're you. My Sam. We're us. It's. I think this is it, don't you?"

Sam exhaled. Her eyes were blue, blue, blue and she was smiling, lips pressed to his fingertips. "I haven't ever--" he stopped. Let the thoughts circle like crazy. He wasn't allowed to have things, there was something wrong with him. But... he could have this, right? It wasn't wrong, wasn't sick. It was practically a dream of normal. "Yes," he said, just the second the hopeful sparkle in Jess' eyes began to fade. "This is it. This. I want this."

Then there was the week of spring break that she finally convinced him to come and meet her parents with her. Sam had learned early on that there was a list of bad ideas out there. No one actually gave him the list, he kind of had to figure it out for himself with trial and error, but his experience told him that meeting his beautiful girlfriend's rich parents might be one of those really bad ideas.

Of course Jess laughed at him. "They'll love you, Sam! You're like, the classic self made man or something. Besides, I swear they won't bite. I'm their kid and I don't bite." She clacked her teeth at him playfully. "Not unless you beg pretty."

Sam groaned and buried his face in his hands while Jess kept laughing at him. He got a book from the library that explained things like which forks to use, but he didn't really get it and wished to hell there was a schematic diagram or something.

Then he got to dinner and Jess' parents were incredibly nice. Her mother hugged him as soon as he stepped through the front door. She was a tiny woman, especially compared to Jess' father who was approaching Sam's height, but Jess had her smile. She smelled of baking and expensive perfume.

"I'm Elaine Moore. It's wonderful to have you in our home, Sam," she said.

Jess' father stood behind her, smiling just as wide. "I'm Don," he said and shook Sam's hand with a firm, steady grip. The kind Dad had always said meant something when it came to handshakes.

"Sir," Sam said and tried to give back a smile that wasn't too fake. "Ma'am."

"Don and Elaine," Jess's father said quickly. "From what Jess tells us about you we'll be facing some pretty intense competition from you on the legal end once you start practicing."

Sam couldn't help a startled laugh. "I have to get into law school first, Sir," he protested.

"Don," Jess's father repeated. "And we have no doubts on that front, Sam. Now let's get out of the doorway and feed you kids some dinner, you must be starving."

Sam walked in after Jess into one of the nicest houses he'd ever been in. He kicked off his shoes in the hall and tried to stand up straight and smile like he had a thousand times when Dean was running a con or Dad needed to get in somewhere he had no business being.

This is Sam the nice upstanding young man you want to fuck your daughter. It would have been easier to hunch down and wait to be called out as a fake that didn't belong here. Definitely easier than sitting down to dinner and watching Jess' parents ask her a thousand questions and smile at her, nodding along like they really cared about her answers.

She was so beautiful like that, waving her hands to illustrate her words. Laughing and golden. Loved. Sam propped his hand on his palm and watched her, smiling thoughtlessly right up until he caught Jess' mother—Elaine, watching him watch Jess.

He jerked upright but she just nodded to him with a pleased, bright expression. "I like your boyfriend, Jess. I think he really loves you," she said and Sam blushed a dusky red when they both looked at him with the same knowing smile.

The entire dinner was like that, Sam trying to be Sam Winchester, college boy and future lawyer and the Moores trying to be the perfect family. Except half way through, while Jess ran through a crazy story about a fire alarm in the middle of a final last semester, and her dad interrupted her, and smiled at Sam. "Would you believe some of the things I've had to do to put food on the table?" he asked. Cheerful, happy with his perfect teeth.

Sam saw Dean, vivid as if he were here. Fourteen, counting out a meager pile of bills, trying to figure out how he was going to get food. Fourteen with his face pressed into brick.

Dinner went on around Sam like there was nothing wrong. Happy, nice normal people, like the kind he went to school with since he was little, like the kind he was so good at pretending to be.

These people weren't pretending, no fakes or masks for a stranger. Sam knew all about what masks looked like. They were really like this. All the time. They were really like this all the time. He got up so fast his chair clattered. "I'm sorry," he said, ignoring all the startled looks. "I have to uh-- I'll be back in a minute."

He didn't wait for a response, just dashed flat out for the bathroom, switched on the water and bolted the door. In the wide, well-lit mirror a guy stared back at Sam. A startled-eyed, too tall guy, wearing an expensive sweater that was a Christmas present from his girlfriend. A guy who was shaking, a little gray under his tan.

Sam had no idea how long he stood there staring into the mirror and shaking, but he came out of it when there was a knock on his door. Sharp and steady and Jess' voice behind it. "You feeling okay, Sam?" she asked. Her voice steadied Sam out of it, if only because she sounded so calm. Everything had to be okay as long as Jess was feeling okay.

"I'll be out in a second!" he called back through the door. The face in the mirror looking back at him was still again, a more normal color. Mask firmly back in place. This is Sam Winchester, just add a nice smile.

He went back out and pretended to be the perfect boyfriend from a tv show, bright, shining and exactly what anyone would want for their daughter. Jess' parents played along with him, clearly delighted, but Sam could see the look on Jess' face, narrower than before, watching him, watching like she could see right through to the cracks in the plastic.

That night she sneaked into the guest room and he curled up to meet her. "Wanna tell me what's wrong?" she asked softly. Her hand was warm tucked into his. "You've been acting weird all day."

"Sorry," Sam whispered back. "Your parents didn't--"

"My parents think you're perfect," Jess interrupted. "That's not what this is about."

Sam forced a smile and stretched back out against the pillow underneath him. "Perfect, huh? Little do they know."

Jess smacked him lightly on the hand and he grinned and pulled her down into a kiss. Delay and distract, delay and distract. Jess felt beautiful, light in his arms. She caught him by the wrists, pushed him down until he was splayed out for her, watching her body grind down onto his. In the dim moonlight coming in through the cracks in the blinds she was silver and distant, like a fairy woman.

Her throat was bare and he kissed it lightly, not leaving a mark. So careful so that tomorrow she could wear a sleeveless t-shirt and it would be like he was never there. And she just laughed and arched down, rubbing her breasts against his stomach so that he could feel the drag of hardening nipples.

He could smell her, feel her when she straddled his thighs, so slippery she left a trail of herself all over his skin. She kissed hard, deep sucking kisses, less careful than he was with her. Free. Like Dean had been for one night under that glamor, like Jess was all the time.

Sam kissed her without saying he was kissing her goodbye. He planned it out while she fucked him, hating himself more every second. Sick, sick. Had to be in a way she wouldn't argue, wouldn't look back, would know she was well rid of him. He kissed the corners of her mouth, the sweet curve of her breasts and he made up his mind.

Sam brought a pick up home the day before their anniversary. A guy, because guys were easier. He picked him out carefully, someone tall, one of the few he could find who was taller than Sam. Someone to nail him to the bed, hard and relentless.

He didn't watch Jess' face when she walked in the door, just pressed his cheek into the pillow so that he was looking away from her, so she couldn't see him. He doubted it would be a problem, but just in case, he had to be sure she wouldn't look him in the eyes.

She didn't say a word but Sam didn't need to hear a word, just the way the door clicked closed behind him. He moved all his stuff out of the apartment without being asked. Four duffels worth now instead of two, but not too much to carry.

The dorms found him a place in a corner with faulty wiring and a freshman roommate who freaked out and left school after his second round of mid-terms, but even that was better than expected. His old friends, the ones he shared with Jess stopped looking at him.

 

After Jess, there didn't seem to be much of a point, but school was what he had, so Sam pushed himself into it. But with her gone, there were some things in his blood to go back to and one of them ended up being hunting. He might be scum, but he wasn't enough of an asshole to not stop a ghost that was poisoning pre-school kids right under his nose at the faculty day care center.

It turned out to be a divorced woman with a Medea complex. She'd lost her kids in the settlement and brought them some heavily dosed juice on a visit and drank her own share with them. Sam didn't catch her out until the third little body got wheeled out to an ambulance, but he did manage the salt and burn right before the daughter of his medieval history professor drank her own share of juice.

Professor Tallin caught him on the way out of class, but he didn't think anything of it. He'd kept his name pretty much out of it as far as he was aware. "Hey, Sam, hold your horses a second," she called and Sam stopped and let her catch up to him.

"Was my paper okay?" Sam asked, because that was all he could imagine she'd need to talk to him about.

She shook her head. "I'm sure it was fine, your work is always excellent, Sam. But that's not what I wanted to talk with you about as I'm sure you know."

"Professor?" Sam asked, giving her his best blank stare.

Her eyes were dark and a little amused as she stared right back at him. "Sam. Not everyone in the world is blind to what's really out there. I know what you did. I know you saved my little girl."

Sam blinked. "I- I don't know what--"

"I'm Romani," Professor Tallin said, the smile still on her face. "My mother has the sight. She told me exactly what happened."

"Oh," Sam said, because he had nothing else to say. "I didn't save all of them."

"Don't be a fool, Sam Winchester," she said. Her hand was very small and very warm when she pressed it onto Sam's. "I want to thank you. That's all. Please let me do it."

"I don't need thanks," Sam whispered, not looking at her, not meeting her eyes.

"I'm sure you don't, but I need to give it." She squeezed his fingers and Sam couldn't resist the impulse to squeeze back. He wasn't sure if she was the first person to really touch him since Jess, but it seemed likely.

"You're welcome, then," Sam said softly, staring down at their intertwined fingers.

"My mother would also like to thank you, if you would give her that privilege." There was gentleness in Professor Tallin's eyes that Sam couldn't make anything of. He didn't know.

"Okay," he finally said. "As long as she knows she doesn't have to."

"She knows. I'll take you to her." And as easily as that, it was settled.

Professor Tallin's mother was a small, white haired woman who had a room near the kitchen in her daughter's big, airy house.

The room itself smelled of candle wax and spices, thick and close. Sam could see the dangling implements of wishes and curses, blessings and power hanging from the wall. He didn't have to ask what this woman was.

"Ma'am," he said, softly and respectfully.

"So, you're the boy. Come a little closer," she said, beckoning him over. "I'll give you a gift, in thanks for what you did."

"I don't need a gift, Ma'am," Sam said, but she clucked her tongue impatiently and he came.

"One wish," the woman said. Up close her eyes were milky, covered with a thin film. She caught Sam's hands in hers, rubbing her worn, paper dry palm against his. "Anything you truly want. That I can grant, of course, I'm just a woman, not a djinn."

There were a thousand stories about that, a thousand ways it can go wrong, that it can spoil worlds. One wish. Sam had fantasized about it, thought it through back when he was a kid. He and Dean had debated what would make sense. He had an answer.

He forgot what it was. "I want Dean to remember," he blurted out, thoughtless and heedless. Completely crazy. "I want Dean to know." In that second he forgot his father's voice, forgot his promise. Don't put this on your brother. Don't you dare. Don't you dare.

In the next second he remembered, but the woman just smiled and nodded her head, stopping the words he might have used to try to take it back. "Normally I'd ask for something that belonged to him, but in this case... that's not needed, is it? It's done," she said. "Your wish is truth."

"Wait," Sam whispered. But she closed her eyes and rocked back in her chair, humming softly to herself and not hearing a word he said.

He walked away shivering like he had the flu, even in the warm afternoon air. He could almost taste the anticipation of what happened next. But-- he didn't know. An angry phone call? An angrier visit? Maybe it would be nothing. Maybe Dean would just wake up and remember, would realize what Sam was, what Sam had done all this time.

Dean could realize Dad had been right, more than right to keep them apart. It wasn't like Dean had been breaking down his door to visit before this.

As Sam walked the thoughts and speculation kept attacking him. Maybe it was all a fake-out and Dean wouldn't remember at all. Then all that would happen would be the same nothing, the same stupid useless nothing.

Sam stopped a few blocks from his dorm. Just stopped, stared at the pavement and breathed. Then kicked the nearest tree, sharp and brutal. The branch cracked with a whining sound, clattering to the ground. He stared at it.

It didn't matter. He was going home, to his place. He had a place at school, a scholarship, maybe law school afterwards. Dean was gone. Any way this played out, Dean was gone. He'd been gone for a long, long time and most of it-- fuck, all of it, was on Sam.

"I'm going to be okay," Sam whispered to himself, never mind that anyone watching would see a freak, a psycho. Breaking things and standing there, shuffling and muttering to himself. "I'm going to be fine."

He went to his room, took a shower and crawled into bed, pulling the thin blankets over his head and pretending to sleep. Pretending his ears weren't pricked up for a ringing phone, for a whispered word. Pretending that he wasn't waiting for Dean to come no matter what he told himself.

 

Sam didn't know when he fell asleep for real, just that when he woke up there was sun in his face and Dean was sitting in the chair next to his bed looking down at him like he'd been settled in there for a long, long time just watching. He looked the same. A little darker under the eyes, something harder in the set of his mouth but he looked the same. He was Dean and Dean was beautiful to see.

"Morning, princess," Dean said, sly and easy, like there was nothing weird going on here. Like they'd just seen each other yesterday and Dean was waking him up because he'd overslept for school. "You get all your beauty sleep? It's like one in the afternoon."

Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes, like his stomach wasn't in his feet and his heart wasn't pounding double time. Like he wasn't in a room with Dean for the first time in fucking years. If that was what Dean wanted to do he could pretend. "If you'd have called, I'd have set my alarm for you," he said, like it was a joke.

Dean nodded and grinned. "Damn straight." Sam watched as Dean's gaze flickered around. "This room sucks, you know that? It's more mildew stained than that shithole in South Florida. Remember?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure. But, hey, it's home. What are you doing here, Dean?"

Dean sighed and rubbed the back of his neck like he was scratching for words in that spot. "Dad's missing. I-I had a fight with Dad," Dean finally said. "And now he's missing. Ran out on me." He scuffed the toe of his boot against the pine floorboards and gave a raised eyebrow half smile. Like, what can you do?

"Oh?" Sam asked numbly. He didn't need a map drawn for this. He was just wondering why Dean was here instead of chasing down Dad. "What did you fight about?"

Dean made a thick, disbelieving half-laugh of a noise. "You know what about better than I do, Sammy."

Sam bit his lip and stared at Dean's feet. Dean. Here, breathing his air. Dean close enough to touch. He could feel the heat of hands on his skin, as if Dean were touching him already. He kept his own hands to himself, practically sitting on them. "I don't know why you're here," he said. "Why don't you tell me about that, huh?"

"I woke up in this fleabag motel in Sacramento with a whole bunch of memories I didn't know I had," Dean said, slow and more tentative than Sam had ever wanted to hear his brother. "I think you damn well know what I'm talking about there, Sam."

Sam nodded, because what else could he do. He'd sworn never to put this on Dean, given his father his fucking word. Sworn and now he'd broken that oath. The voice that lived in his head was screaming overtime, making it hard to think, hard to speak. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'm really sorry, Dean. I know what I did wasn't right."

He didn't know what he expected. Dean was here. Dean wasn't even acting angry, which made no sense. Dean was here with him when Sam had really never expected to see him again. That had to be worth something.

Dean made a sound, low, like something was caught in his throat and he couldn't get it out. Then, between breaths, Dean was there, fully dressed and large as life, crowding onto Sam's narrow dorm room bed. The heat and softness of his flannel shirt squished into Sam's bare skin. "Damn you got huge, you giant fuckwit," Dean hissed as he buried his face in Sam's neck. "Who said you were allowed to turn into a yeti? Dumbass. Jesus, Sammy. Fucking Jesus on a fucking crutch."

"I'm sorry," Sam repeated helplessly. "I'm so sorry." He could smell Dean, warm and alive, like leather and oil and the Impala. Like something out of one of his stupid, hopeless wet dreams. He tried to squash the impulse but his body pushed it back on him, warm and needy. So long since anyone had touched him at all. No one since Jess. Since the boy he'd used to end it with Jess.

"Would you shut up?" Dean hissed. Fingers dug into Sam's shoulder-blades, rough enough to leave a red mark. Sam shuddered and bit his lip. Tried to wiggle his way out of Dean's grip before Dean really got the idea of what it was that he was so very sorry about.

Dean didn't let him go. Sam might be bigger, but Dean had the better angle, enough to give him all the leverage unless Sam wanted to fight to hurt him. Dean's heavy, callused palms were pressed against his skin. Dean's knee right under his balls, the layers of blankets not much insulation. "Would you hold still?" Dean demanded. Harsh, like an order. Sam shut his eyes and went still.

Sam tasted Dean's mouth before he quite realized that they were kissing. Wet and steady, careful, like Dean was opening a puzzle, building something with his lips and tongue. There was a noise, low and embarrassing, that Sam only half realized was coming from him.

When the kiss broke, Dean was leaning over him, staring down with wide, wide green eyes. Sun-bright eyes, different and the same from how Dean had looked kissing in the moonlight. Sam could feel himself panting, his heart going over time, a thud-thud in his throat. "Sam," Dean whispered. "Sammy. I didn't know. I swear to fuck, I never knew."

Sam turned his face away. It was too much, too weird to look into Dean's face like this. "You weren't supposed to. I didn't mean to put this on you. You had enough shit," he said. That was Dad's voice again. Sick. Sick. His dick hurt, throbbing between his legs. The skin on his back where Dean's name was initialed, that hurt, worse than it ever had when he got it.

"No," Dean said. Steady, firm. Dean, with his feet planted into the earth. Unmovable. He caught Sam's chin in his hands and turned it carefully so that they were looking eye to eye, face to face. "All this time," Dean said. "I wanted you all this time. And you were already mine."

 

"You didn't," Sam whispered, an echo of old words, said by moonlight. As if everything in him didn't agree that yeah, of course, of course, Dean was right. "You never thought about me. Not like this."

Dean snorted, a ridiculous sound that was so Dean that Sam had to smile despite himself. "Don't be a dumbass, Sam. I think I know what I thought about. I thought about you running around with those assholes that fucked you up. You think I couldn't be better than that shit? When it was for you?"

Sam almost snorted. "It's sick," Sam said. Out loud. What the voice in his head said, what Dad said. "What I want. I'm kind of a freak. You must have noticed that."

Dean just laughed outright and kissed him again. "Yeah, another Winchester freak. Awesome. I'll take that." Sam might have said something else, but Dean kissed him silent, tongue pressing into his mouth, wet and hungry enough to make Sam's body arch against him. "Shh... I'll take you," Dean said, like it was a promise, clear and steady. Dean kissed him quiet, kissed the mocking voice in his head quiet all at the same time.

"You're a bigger freak," Sam scoffed, when he could talk again. As if his throat weren't tipped back, his legs weren't spread nice and easy so that Dean could peel off the blankets and kneel between them.

"Well, duh," Dean muttered. "Nice of you to notice. Now shut up and I'll give you a blow job."

Sam found himself laughing, helpless and crazy, until Dean's red, wide mouth slid over the head of his cock, so slippery-tight it made him howl. Dean pulled off and gave him a light smack on the hip. "Shut it, you'll wake the whole floor, dumbass," he hissed, but he looked pleased with himself. Even more pleased when Sam's cock twitched a little harder at the blow. "You like that, huh? Good to know."

Anyone else might have been half rough after that but Dean went slower instead. Ridiculous Dean, with surprisingly big, gentle hands gliding over Sam's skin. Making him shiver, all sweat and gooseflesh. "Dean," Sam muttered through bitten lips when he came. Trying to be quiet, needing to speak. "Fuck. Dean."

Dean let him slip out of his mouth and just looked at him, just stared for a second. A stupid stare, the one he'd used to get when Sam was hurt for some reason or sick in bed, but then he went back to touching, slow and easy so Sam couldn't mind much. "I've got you," he finally said. Hoarse, throat fucked voice. Beautiful.

Sam barely noticed when Dean got him on his side, hands still moving, fingers everywhere. Easy, easy, dipping down Sam's spine, making him go loose, relax in places he'd never known were tense. Sam didn't think at all until Dean went still against him. Still and stiff, like he was shocked. Dean's fingers curled up against the sweaty skin there, in that dip of spine on the small of Sam's back.

"That's a tattoo," Dean whispered. His voice was thick, rough. "DW. You-- that's a tattoo. Sammy, Jesus."

Sam could feel the blush spread, fast and stupid. Out of everything he'd thought about when he got the fucking thing, Dean's reaction like this wasn't-- how could he have ever thought Dean would find out like this. He groaned and buried his face in his pillow. "Just shut up," he muttered. "You can make fun of me later."

"You have my name written on you," Dean said, too slowly. Not like he was gearing up for a joke. Sam could feel the motions of his body when he pulled up and back. Sticky sweat and semen between their bodies thick enough that Dean had to peel them apart. Sam would have flinched, except Dean's hands on the small of his back stayed there, just stroking lightly. "Why?" Dean finally asked.

Sam shrugged into the pillow and closed his eyes. "Because I'm yours," he said, quick, toneless, like it didn't matter. He could feel that familiar twist in his stomach, waiting for the ax to fall. "I wanted to know it, even if you-- if you didn't."

Dean didn't say anything, just breathed, loud and unsteady. Sam bit the pillow, tasting cotton and saliva on it, keeping himself quiet, still. When Dean finally spoke he'd been quiet so long that Sam almost jumped. "I know," Dean said. "Turn around and look at me." Sam shook his head, keeping the rest of him still. "Please, Sam."

The plea in Dean's voice was too much. Sam turned, slow, not knowing what he expected, what he hoped to see. The look on Dean's face. Wide eyed, lips parted. Awestricken. Like he was looking at the Impala. Like he was looking at God. "Sammy," Dean said.

"Yeah?" Sam asked. He kept his eyes open wide and on Dean's. Waiting. Dean's hands slid up his spine and over his shoulders. Cupped his face between them and held on.

"I'm yours too, dumbass," Dean said. More a hiss, more leaking thoughts than words. "You could have waited for me."

Sam couldn't help it. He just laughed. Long and hard and hysterical, he couldn't stop until there were tears coming down his face. "I guess I was always the quicker one."

Dean just nodded and stroked Sam's cheeks, thumbs brushing away tears like he'd done when Sam was four or six and hardly ever since. "It's okay, Sammy. Come on, let's go somewhere. I'll buy you lunch."

Outside, the Impala was waiting for them. Gleaming black in the late afternoon sun, like a vision out of Sam's childhood. "You have the car," he says, but he's not really surprised. Dean always loved that car to the point of stupidity.

Dean just laughed and elbowed Sam in the ribs. "My car now," was all he said. "Come on. Let's go."

They stopped for tacos at a roadside place, got them wrapped up and kept driving. The hum of the Impala under Sam's bones felt achingly familiar, the only dissonance was riding shotgun with Dean instead of in the back with a book.

Dean pulled them over up in the hills, miles away from Palo Alto. Middle of nowhere off a dirt track, hidden from the road. "It's weird having you here," Dean said, staring out into the trees.

"Sorry, I--" Sam began, but Dean didn't let him finish. He grabbed him by the shoulders instead, wrenched around faster than should be possible and kissed him, hard and furious, more like biting.

"I'm going to give you what you want," Dean said. He was panting, red mouthed and narrow eyed in the bright, clear light. "Everything you need. I can do it for you. Don't ever think that I won't, that I'm not gonna."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sam admitted, with a half laugh that broke off when Dean grabbed him by the wrist, thumb digging in hard and brutal. Sam gasped at the contact, like Dean had taken him by the dick instead. His head tipped back, throat exposed.

"I'll show you," Dean promised, low and soft, almost coaxing. "Take off your pants. Boxers too." Sam blinked, about to say something, but Dean's fingers pressed over his mouth, digging into where the skin was tender. "Don't argue, just do it. Please."

It was the please that made Sam whimper. Please in Dean's voice. He canted up his hips and undid his jeans, pushing them down. It was awkward, definitely not enough space to make it sexy in the front seat of the car. He probably looked like a pretzel, but Dean wasn't laughing. Dean was watching him, steady, like Sam was someone else.

Sam could feel the throb of his cock, hard, the soft edges of his t-shirt brushing over it when he moved the only stimulation. That and Dean's eyes on it, hungry and wide. Dean licked his lips and Sam didn't say a word, just spread his legs as wide as he could, trying to show Dean everything, his body angled for touch, any touch.

"Get out of the car," Dean whispered. Sam hesitated for a bare second, and Dean shook his head and smiled. "Do it. No one can see you from here. No one's gonna look at you but me. I won't let anyone."

Sam swallowed, feeling the pressure in his throat. He got out of the car. The ground was soft, pine needle covered, under his naked feet. He felt ridiculous, bare from the waist down, just a shirt rubbing and tingling over the skin of his chest, clinging to the sweat on his back. He almost expected Dean to start laughing, but he didn't. He just stayed in the car and watched him from the open door.

"Dean?" Sam asked. He shuffled where he stood, pressing back on his heels.

"Yeah," Dean said, blinking for a moment, like the sun had gotten into his eyes. Then he smiled, slow and dazzling and Sam caught his breath. "Go sit on the hood. It's going to be so hot, isn't it? All that metal in the sun. And your poor naked ass on it. Sit down for me and then spread your legs, wide as you can."

Sam nodded tightly, pressing his nails into his palms to steady himself. He could feel his cock moving when he walked, bobbing and stupid, leaving trails of sticky precome over his stomach and shirt. Feel Dean's gaze like a hand on him.

The black metal of the hood was hot. Almost too hot on his bare skin, between the burn of the fading afternoon sun on the black paint and the engine underneath. Sam almost screamed at the feel of it, the throbbing burn that seemed to cut right through his skin. He had to breathe through it, eyes closed tight, too damned tight, the pain a roar in his head.

He didn't open his eyes until he felt a hand on his thigh. Tight and cutting through every other sensation.

"Does that feel good, Sam?" Dean's voice, low and broken, like something from another world. Sam whimpered and squirmed under his touch. "You're so hard, you're dripping like a girl. Jesus, look at you. Spread your legs a little more for me, that's a good boy."

It hurt, the stretch of muscles, the burn of his ass. He was already spread so wide, wide as he could but Dean was whispering for more, just a little more. It hurt. "It hurts," he heard himself say. "Dean, it-- please."

The wrong thing, because that made Dean pull away and when Sam opened his eyes Dean was staring. "Shit, sorry," Dean began, and Sam could see the shadow in his eyes, the way he was going to push himself away from Sam, if Sam let him. "I didn't mean to--"

Sam didn't let him, was never going to let him. He was so overloaded, burning up. Hot. Hard. And Dean's face, it just made him smile despite all of that, like a bubble of hysteria. "Oh shut up, asshole. I like it, and you know it." He reached out and grabbed Dean by the hips, gasping when the motion made his muscles strain just a little more.

But he had Dean and Dean was letting him pull him close. Warm and there, between Sam's wide spread legs. Sam pulled him hard so he was close enough and then kissed him, the angle making him have to tug Dean down into it. Dean fought for a second, barely even that, and then Sam could feel him go loose, relax. Could smell the need on him, light sweat and thick arousal. He smelled like Sam. Dean. Dean, Dean.

When he had Dean pressed in as close as he could get, he wound his legs around him, tight and hard, letting Dean's body arch and thrust against his. The friction of Dean's jeans against his bare, burning skin almost made him scream, but he rode it out.

"Sam," Dean gasped into his neck. "Sammy." Sam could feel wetness, slick against his collarbone. The double speed pants of Dean's breath in time with the relentless pulse of his own dick.

After, Sam got up gingerly, wincing at the pain of strained muscles. The skin on his backside felt hot and too tight, like a sunburn. But he was smiling, he couldn't stop smiling. Dean was there and watching him.

"Made you come in your pants," Sam said and laughed at the startled look on Dean's face. Startled and still fixed on Sam, and nothing but Sam.

And Dean, Dean just smirked right back at him, free and easy. "Somehow I still think I'm not the one with the really uncomfortable ride back to look forward to, Sammy my boy," he said and smacked Sam's sore ass, with a loud slap of skin.

Sam yelped like a puppy and then went for him and somehow they ended up on the ground and covered with sticky pine needles in really stupid places. Laughing. Okay.

Sam didn't know if he expected it to be easy after that, but it was. Just the two of them going on back to Sam's dorm. Dean sitting with him on the bed, thumbing through one of Sam's duffel bags, twitching and keeping his hands busy while he said, "I want to go look for Dad, Sam. What he did-- fuck it. I need to know why."

Sam fisted the sheets in one hand and nodded, trying not to feel the throb of his skin. He didn't know why he hadn't expected that. "When are you leaving?" he asked softly.

Dean shrugged. "I can wait a while. When can you wrap things up here?"

Sam blinked. That wasn't-- "Dad made it pretty clear he didn't want to see me again."

"I could give a fuck what he made clear," Dean hissed. "I can't do this without you, Sam." Sam just kept staring at Dean until Dean flushed and lowered his gaze. "Okay. Fuck. I don't want to do it without you, okay? It's not like you're not miserable here."

Sam scrubbed his hands over his eyes and then finally nodded slowly. "I. Yeah. Okay. Then I guess we have work to do."


End file.
